


Where You Lead (I Will Follow)

by JSevick



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Both Arrow and GG characters appear, But in a sort of order, F/M, Gilmore Girls AU, Really just the side characters of Stars Hollow, Single Mom Felicity, Slow Burn, Sort of a drabble series
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-28
Updated: 2016-02-23
Packaged: 2018-04-28 16:20:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 21,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5097179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JSevick/pseuds/JSevick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oliver Queen’s careful routine at the diner he owns is disrupted by Stars Hollow’s newest residents, a single mom and her young daughter searching for a new life--and his own simple life will never be the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Grumpy diner owner and chatty coffee lover? Sounds like an Olicity AU to me!! 
> 
> This first chapter is just a repost of the one-shot from my AU collection, but so many people wanted more that I've decided to continue it into a longer multi-chapter fic! Thank you to everyone who wanted more--and I hope you enjoy. :)

Oliver Queen likes routine.

He likes the ring of the alarm clock in the dark of early morning, at the same time every day. He likes the sounds of Roy firing up the fryer as he trudges downstairs. He likes knowing when to wake Thea up and have her out at the counter before Babette and Miss Patty arrive, since they always grab his arms and giggle—and he’s pretty sure Babette once tried to lift his shirt when his back was turned. He likes knowing when John Diggle will sit at the counter for his eggs, bacon and coffee each morning, as they talk about baseball scores instead of whatever nonsense Taylor is shouting at him.

He even likes that all his customers are regulars from Stars Hollow, even if it keeps his budget tight every month, because he likes the familiarity—the often ridiculous familiarity.

Ever since he got back from the war, he likes the routine.

But the tiny blonde woman with glasses and the little girl she hauls in behind her are anything but routine.

“ _Please_ tell me you have coffee,” the woman is saying before she even reaches the counter, as the little girl at her side who can’t be older than seven or eight rolls her eyes. “This is a diner, it’s practically the law that you have coffee, right? Except I suppose the only thing you _have_ to have is some form of dining, otherwise it’s a clear case of false advertising, this isn’t a ‘café’—but you _do_ have coffee, right?”

She has barely taken a breath in this muttering tirade, which Oliver isn’t sure was directed at anyone but herself, but she’s up to the counter now and fixes the blue eyes behind her glasses right on him. They widen slightly, taking him in, and he wonders if he has grease stains on his dark green henley.

He’s a bit distracted taking in her appearance as well—the pink blazer over a polka dot top that occasionally flashes a strip of skin above her pencil skirt, her golden hair slicked back into a ponytail that swings behind her head. The girl holding her hand has light brown hair and the same blue eyes, that are now narrowed and watching him carefully, silently. _Sisters?_ He wonders, before he realizes the woman’s eyebrows have lifted, awaiting his response.

“Yeah, we have coffee,” he says, slightly gruff in his haste to get the words out and prove himself not completely mindless.

“Oh, thank God,” she says as she slides onto the counter stool across from him, and the little girl climbs up onto the one beside her. “I’m pretty sure I have now walked around the entire town and I’m already late for work on my first day—did you know this town has at least three stores dedicated to antiques, and yet as far as I can tell only one place that will keep me from drying up and becoming one myself? I need your biggest sized coffee, immediately.”

“Want a menu?” Oliver asks, already pouring coffee into the largest mug in reach, wondering if the dirty rag slung over his shoulder seems unsanitary.

When he slides the mug across to her, he notices the green nail polish on her fingernails as she curls her hands around the mug, lifting it to her bright pink lips with closed eyes and a happy sigh that jolts something warm through his blood.

“I’ll take it,” the little girl says in a resigned voice, as the woman continues in her blissful savoring of the coffee, and Oliver finds his lips curling helplessly into a smile at both of them as he settles the menu into the girl’s tiny hands.

“Oh, sorry, baby, you want something? Mommy’s alive now,” the woman says, setting down her coffee as the little girl flips open the laminated menu.

Oliver’s eyebrows twitch down in a momentary frown—the woman does not look old enough to have a seven-year-old daughter, probably no older than mid twenties herself. Though, of course, he knows it’s more than possible; but it makes him think of Thea, still in high school, flirting with Roy in the kitchens, and he has to strike the irrational anger from his face before the woman looks back up at him.

“Ooh, we could have donuts,” the woman says eagerly. Her eyes have fallen on the glass dish piled with a pyramid of chocolate-glazed donuts, sitting beside the cash register.

“You need something more substantial than that,” Oliver says before he can stop himself.

The woman blinks, a look of surprise on her face, before her eyes narrow and she tilts her head to the side. It’s supposed to be a look of chastisement, he supposes, but he finds himself almost smiling again—and when does _that_ ever happen?

She’s just so… _cute_.

“Is that supposed to be some kind of sales tactic, trying to guilt me into ordering more or something? Because… well, I guess it’s not bad, playing into the whole concerned mom thing, good for you—but you could just put a picture of you and all of _this-_ ” She waves a hand around in his general direction. “-In the window and you’d have all the customers you could ever want.”

Then she freezes, before yanking her hand back in over her face and groaning, “Wait, I did not mean to say that out loud. Please unhear that.”

Now Oliver grins, and he doesn’t try to stop himself.

“I want pancakes,” the little girl says suddenly, and she pokes her head up over the menu she’s holding up in front of her. “Do you have ones with chocolate chips?”

The primness of her little voice doesn’t help Oliver’s attempts to stop smiling like a fool. “Yes, we do.”

“Are you sure that’s substantial enough?” the woman asks, one eyebrow raised.

“How about a side of scrambled eggs?” When she glares at him, he lifts his hands in surrender and adds, “On the house.”

“What do you say, Lizzie? Will you eat some eggs with your pancakes?” the woman asks the girl, who looks as though she’s considering the matter for a few seconds before she nods and hands Oliver the menu. The woman glances down at the phone in her purse, and then shrugs. “I guess I’ll just be even later to work—it’s a Tech Village in the middle of nowhere. I’m pretty sure that guy Kirk can handle the old people coming in to figure out ‘the e-mail.’”

Oliver’s writing down the order to hand to Roy, face still twisted into a small smile, when he feels someone step up beside him.

“Who are you and how did you get my brother to look like that?” Thea asks, standing behind the counter with her hands on her hips and a teasing smile on her lips.

“I’m pretty sure a choir of angels got him to look like that,” the woman blurts out, and then her eyes flutter closed in embarrassment. “Hi, I’m, um, Felicity Smoak, and this is my daughter Lizzie.”

“Really my name is Felicity, too,” the little girl adds, ignoring the look her mother sends her.

“You’re _both_ named Felicity?” Thea asks.

“They really shouldn’t let you name babies while still high on pain meds,” Felicity says with a sigh, as she runs a hand over her daughter’s hair.

“Are you guys just passing through?” Thea’s still tying her apron strings around her waist, tucking a pad of paper into one of the pockets.

“No, we actually just moved here to Stars Hollow,” Felicity replies. “We couldn’t live with Grandma anymore, could we, Liz?”

Lizzie shakes her head, and Oliver can hear her tiny shoes kicking the counter where her feet dangle off the stool. When Thea asks about where Felicity is living, they start chatting happily, Felicity occasionally lifting the mug of coffee to her lips.

Oliver hands the order slip to Roy through the door to the kitchen, watching Thea and Felicity exchange smiles as they talk about her new house a few blocks from here. Normally, his routine would dictate that he disappear into the back to do inventory and get things ready for the lunch rush, safely away from the counter by the time Miss Patty and Babette arrive.

But he finds himself tidying the shelves around the coffee maker, lingering around the register to watch Felicity nod with a swing of her ponytail at something Thea is saying with a sarcastic grin. He watches Lizzie eat the eggs between bites of pancake with a strange feeling of satisfied pride that he doesn’t know how to place. And when he fills Felicity’s mug before she can even ask, the grateful glimmer in her eyes and the quirk of her smile has him… off-balance.

He should hate it. The disruption of his routine, the unfamiliarity of the woman and the feelings she’s already unsettling inside him, the fact that he’s caught by a swarm of townspeople who come in and greet the newcomer—with Miss Patty catching hold of his arm to curl her hand into his elbow and laugh bawdily about how arms like this once lifted her onto a piano in a nightclub after hours.

He should hate that he doesn’t know if he’ll ever see the woman and her daughter again… and how much he _wants_ to, so much that he nearly asks before they disappear with the ringing of the bell above the door.

He should hate that their return later that night for dinner makes his heart leap in his chest.

But he doesn’t.

He feels something else entirely, especially when he tries to suggest salads with their meals and he gets into an argument with Felicity about kale.

After Felicity and her daughter arrive in his life, Oliver’s careful routine is never the same.

And he wouldn’t want it any other way.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go, on to a multi-chapter (and if I stick to my plans, this will be a long one.) :) 
> 
> This chapter could also be called: Let the Slow Burn begin...

It starts, as so many of her stories do, with a ramble.

Going to the Verdant Diner has become a routine for Felicity Smoak within weeks of moving to Stars Hollow, before she’s even realized it. Having a baby at sixteen had left any hope for a routine life scattered, and she’s adapted to that. But now that she is out of her mother’s house (or crowded apartment, rather), and she and Lizzie are on their own, she has started to put together a new order to her life.

And almost instantly, the diner is a huge part of that.

The owner…

That is a routine she allows herself only in the privacy of her own mind—where she can admit to herself how her eyes instantly seek him out through the plate glass window when she approaches, can replay the sound of his voice gone soft and low when he asks her and Lizzie how they are, can imagine tracing the curve of his smile when she startles one out of the harsh lines of his face.

Out in the real world, she allows herself only friendship. Because she has been down that road before, and the result (that she _loves_ with all her heart, even as it changed her entire life) is sitting at a table by the window, her skinny legs swinging from the chair.

But Felicity finds herself talking to him, again, far beyond the reaches of a normal owner-customer interaction.

“I told myself I would make my first cup at home, so I can have at least some part of my brain functional by the time I got here,” she says, sipping eagerly at the mug he’s filled in front of her (before she could even say a word). “I got a coffeemaker and everything—not that it would be nearly as tasty as your stuff—your _coffee_ , I mean, obviously, what else would I mean…”

Oliver’s lips twitch into half a smile.

“It’s just that with the broken window the kitchen gets so _hot_ and I get all sweaty and-”

“What?” he asks abruptly, frowning now, and Felicity thinks frantically over the last few things she said.

“Um… I get… sweaty? Sorry, should I not talk about bodily fluids here?  You know, you’re right, that’s probably a good rule, no bodily anything, got it-”

“Felicity,” Oliver says, already used to her tendency to stumble into a tangent and get turned around in conversational circles; she’s not sure if it’s flattering or troubling that he’s picked up on it so quickly. “Your window’s broken?”

“Oh, yeah, it is.” She shrugs. “It’s an old house, and one of the windows in the kitchen got stuck. I had an estimate for replacing the whole window, but it’s way too much for us right now, so… I’m looking into a good tarp or something.”

“That’s not safe,” he says, almost with a scowl.

“It’s Stars Hollow,” she says, as though he doesn’t know. It’s the safest place she’s ever been; they launched a full investigation into a missing garden gnome, and the culprit ended up being a _dog_.

Oliver’s frown remains, but he’s distracted by someone else asking for coffee, and Felicity returns to the table where Lizzie is reading the menu for what must be the hundredth time. She’s already moved past having to sound everything out, but occasionally her lips silently shape the words as her tiny fingertip moves over the laminated plastic. Felicity takes in the chunky pink sneakers, the striped leggings over the knobby knees, the small blue t-shirt with a picture of Wonder Woman on it, and the light brown hair Lizzie tucks behind her ear as she reads—and feels a rush of affection for her little miracle.

“Do you like it here, sweetheart? In Stars Hollow?” she asks as she sits, while Lizzie carefully folds the menu and places it back between the ketchup and mustard bottles.

“Did you say something bad again, Mommy?” Lizzie gives a little sigh. “You just have to say sorry.”

“No, that’s not it—I just want to make sure you’re happy here.”

“I am,” Lizzie says matter-of-factly, nodding, and Felicity smiles at her daughter’s simplicity with words. It’s something she could learn from her.

Then Oliver is standing over their table, setting down plates in front of them. Felicity tries not to stare at the straining of his rolled-up sleeves around the bicep that passes in front of her face, focusing instead on laying her napkin over her lap and watching to make sure Lizzie doesn’t spill her glass of milk as she chooses that moment to lift it over the plate still in Oliver’s hand. He’s quick enough to slide the plate under the wobbling bottom of the glass before a collision, and Felicity finds herself feeling impressed and grateful.

_By a_ plate _, get it together,_ she scolds herself.

“Thank you, Oliver,” Lizzie says in her polite voice, something she uses to sound grown up, and has been using more and more around the diner owner. Felicity bites back a smile that could be read as teasing, and then looks up at Oliver to offer her own thanks.

“I can fix it,” he says, before she can open her mouth to speak. He sounds a little uncertain, though it’s thickly masked by his serious tone. “You probably don’t need to replace the whole window—I’ll take a look at it.”

Felicity blinks up at him. “Oh, uh, you don’t have to—are you sure?” she mumbles out, while the voice in her mind screams, _Say yes, you idiot!_

“Yes—you shouldn’t have your window open all the time, even in Stars Hollow.” The last words _might_ be vaguely mocking, though she can’t tell with his stoic expression. “I can come over later this afternoon.”

“O-okay,” she says, still a bit thrown off by the idea of seeing Oliver outside the diner, at her _house_.

After a moment of eye contact that is slightly awkward and slightly… something else, a clatter in the kitchen jerks his gaze away and he follows quickly after. She hears him muttering in a low, scolding tone to Roy, and ducks her head in a private smile.

“You’re being quiet, Mommy,” Lizzie says after a moment, around a bite of hashbrowns. “Are you okay? Is this because you made a playdate with Oliver?”

Felicity sighs, still smiling, and refocuses on the daughter who’s blinking big blue eyes at her. “I’m fine—but don’t talk with your mouth full. And it’s not a _playdate_ —or a date, or anything but a friend helping another friend out. We’re going to be… friends.”

_Just_ friends.

“Can Oliver be my friend, too?” Lizzie asks, perking up in her chair.

“Of course he can, sweetie.” Felicity watches Lizzie’s happy little smile as she chews noisily on a strip of bacon, and feels another firm wall come down in her mind. Because if she reaches too far and falls, she won’t be the only one hurt.

Her heart hasn’t been just hers since she was sixteen years old, and she will not do _anything_ to risk breaking both of their hearts.

So no matter what, it will be just… friends. Nothing more.

XXXXX

Of course, that resolve is a lot easier to hold when she isn’t staring at Oliver’s broad back beneath a tight t-shirt, as he crouches in front of her window. He stares up in concentration at the wood he’s scraping away with a flat silver tool, his arms coiled as he works, and Felicity hovers in the doorway to the kitchen with her mind _completely_ blank as to why she’s there.

Something… about… _muscles_ …

The cling of the t-shirt to a damp slick of sweat down the center of his back—that she is hungrily staring at with her fingers twitching at her sides, as though she can feel the bunching of his shoulders beneath her hands, as he shoves at the window again—suddenly reminds her of the _heat_. The actual heat of the room, not just the heat sliding through her in ways she just swore off less than eight hours ago.

“Let me get you something to drink, something cold,” she says, forcing herself to move into the room towards the fridge. “Unless you _want_ something warm, of course, but I figure you’d like something cold because you look hot—I mean, you look like you’re really hot… sweaty… you know, temperature-wise. Not that you _aren’t_ … I’m stopping myself, I swear, any time now.”

She yanks open the fridge to let the blast of cold air wash over her, turning away from him so she can squeeze her eyes closed in mortification and stick her head into the chill.

She can hear the amusement in his voice as he says, “Some water would be great.”

He stands to take the glass of ice water from her hand, and if she stares at the lines of his throat as he drinks, at the expanding of his chest as he breathes, she really can’t find the strength to feel guilty.

“Thank you,” he says softly as he returns the glass to her distracted grasp, and then he gestures back at the window. “I got it to close—I wouldn’t open it if you don’t have to, I’m not sure it won’t get stuck again. But until you can replace it, this is better than a tarp.”

“For keeping out all the dangerous elements of Stars Hollow, you mean,” she says.

His expression is serious as his eyebrows furrow together. “Stars Hollow is very safe, but I’d rather be sure… It’s better to be safe than sorry. Especially with you and Lizzie here alone.”

There’s a moment, as Felicity meets his solemn gaze, where she feels something catching in the space between them, opening up a reality that they could fall into so easily. The few feet of kitchen between where they stand could be crossed in a single stride, and this impossibly attractive man is looking at _her_ like that, like maybe…

But the front door slamming closed jerks them both out of the moment, as tiny rapid footsteps rush into the kitchen. Lizzie stops abruptly upon seeing Oliver standing there, who’s turning towards her with a small welcoming smile.

“Oliver!” she says, before she can restrain her enthusiasm, something Felicity sympathizes with deeply. Lizzie stands there, twisting her hands around the straps of her backpack, balancing on one foot as she kicks one sneaker back onto the toe and squirms only slightly. “Do you… maybe… wanna see my room? It’s all unpacked now.”

Oliver smiles warmly at her. “Sure, I’d be honored,” he says, and Lizzie grins before turning to the door in the kitchen that leads to her first-floor bedroom.

“Just one minute!” she calls out as she disappears inside. Felicity wonders what she’s doing, given that her daughter is the cleaner one of the two of them, but maybe she’s hiding away some of her baby toys.

“It’s okay, you really don’t have to-”

“Felicity, it’s fine, I’m happy to,” Oliver says, still smiling. And Felicity knows that her daughter won’t be done chasing that smile for a long time… and neither will she.

Then Lizzie reappears, her eagerness shining through her eyes but restrained as she lingers in the doorway, waiting for Oliver to walk over on his own. She’s already more controlled than her mother, who nearly jumped the man for taking a drink of water. But Felicity can still see her little girl’s heart in her face, bared to the world. Oliver’s playful pause in the doorway and his deep voice saying, “May I?” as Lizzie nods only pulls both their hearts deeper.

Felicity will do anything to protect that sweet little heart… 

Including ignoring her own.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver attends a famous Stars Hollow town meeting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter might be a bit rougher for the non-Gilmore Girls fans, as it features a lot of those characters (and to try and contextualize the silliness of these characters would be too much for a fun little drabble). Since this fic is sort of a series of drabbles, you could definitely skip this chapter and be fine--but I did try to include some Olicity bits (and Felicity/Thea, a friendship I desperately want to see more of on the show) sprinkled throughout. 
> 
> Because you can't really have a Gilmore Girls AU without a town meeting. :)

Every time, Oliver tries and fails to avoid these infernal things—and every time, he somehow ends up sitting on the uncomfortable wooden folding chairs, near the back, frowning in confusion at the latest nonsense this town has come up with.

Mostly because of the girl at his side, snickering as Taylor loudly berates the town troubadour for singing a song about animal cruelty in front of his store during his big sale on ground beef. Thea munches on french fries she brought from the diner, left to Roy’s watch, another thing that has Oliver checking his watch anxiously.

Until the other woman who can somehow get him to these things squeezes quietly through the back door to slip into the seat beside Thea.

Felicity Smoak manages to escape Taylor’s notice, mostly because the older man is turning red as he shouts at the “long-haired freak” who has come to the troubadour’s defense, and she takes her seat in the back row with them with only a whispered greeting to Thea and a quick smile in Oliver’s direction. He automatically responds with a small smile of his own, finding himself still staring at her golden ponytail and the earrings dangling from her ears when she turns to watch Taylor throw up his hands and declare a state of total anarchy.

“Oh, get over it, Taylor,” Miss Patty says with a roll of her eyes as his gray beard quivers with rage.

“Fine—but if this _menace_ targets one of your businesses next for his smear campaign, do not look to me for aid!” Taylor shakes his gavel in the air as he stands behind the podium.

“What would you do? Spit on him?” Babette calls out from the crowd, igniting another of Taylor’s scoffing tirades about some sort of town charter provision he’s proposing to deal with the troubadour.

Ignoring the entire ordeal at the front of the dance studio where these town meetings take place, Thea leans over to Felicity, whispering, “Where’s Lizzie?”

“She’s at her new friend Lane’s house,” Felicity replies, and Oliver can see in the barely restrained gleam of her smile that she’s just happy Lizzie made a friend. He’s only interacted with the Kim’s a few times; the woman who owns the antique store is a formidable presence, but her young daughter has a streak of savvy rebellion when her mother looks away. At some of the town events he’s catered, he’s even slipped the girl some free fries or a donut that she hastily stuffed into her pockets.

“I’m picking her up after the meeting,” Felicity continues, muttering quietly to Thea as though they’re co-conspirators in class. “Then I was thinking coffee at the diner?”

Thea nods with a sincere enthusiasm that isn’t much like her these days; it’s something Oliver has missed since the teenager in her took over. “Yeah—do you think maybe you could help me with my math homework again?”

“Sure,” Felicity says, nodding. “I promise not to get sidetracked by polymorphic algorithms again—though I don’t understand how anyone could not enjoy hearing about advanced calculus as it applies to data encryption. But, you know, you do you.”

Oliver feels the pang of a new and yet increasingly familiar warmth in his chest, watching Thea share her fries with Felicity and settle back into her seat with a smile.

In the few months since Felicity and Lizzie arrived, they’ve insinuated themselves into his life in a way he never would have expected—and now can’t imagine living without. The way Felicity sighs over her first cup of coffee in the morning, and the way Lizzie always has to read the menu with an expression of thoughtful concentration even though she already knows what she wants, and the way Felicity blinks and shakes her head just after she’s said something ridiculous… They are a new routine to his day that he finds himself looking forward to when his alarm goes off in the morning.

He can’t really remember the last time he felt that way.

Thea often comments on his new friends, though she accentuates the word “friend” with a waggle of her eyebrows when it comes to Felicity. And yeah, Oliver can’t deny the thought has crossed his mind… a lot. The pursing of her pink lips when she looks down at her phone, or the cutouts in her brightly colored dresses, or the small hand she settles gently on his forearm to get his attention before yanking it back—he’s thought about all of these things far more than he should.

Because he and Felicity are just friends. That’s all they can be.

She deserves something so much better than him.

“People—people!” Taylor shouts over the latest rumble of conversation, quieting the room back into some semblance of order. “Our last item on the agenda—the Fall Food Drive. We are looking for more fundraising options for a truly worthwhile cause.”

“You mean more money to spend on canned goods from _your_ store, Taylor,” Andrew shouts out from a middle row, and several others grumble.

“Now, now, that does not change the fact that the food is going to the less fortunate among us-”

“Which won’t be you, will it?”

Felicity looks over at Thea and Oliver in confusion. “Are they always like this?”

Oliver smiles wryly and says simply, “Yes.”

“How about some kind of auction?” offers someone from the crowd, and as thoughtful murmurs spread through the crowd, Taylor actually seems to be thinking about it.

“Ooh, how about auctioning off the bachelors in town?” Miss Patty says in an eager tone, and Oliver freezes when he realizes her eyes are fixed on him. Several other pairs of eyes find him as the crowd erupts in excited conversation.

“I volunteer!” Kirk yells as he jumps to his feet.

At the same time, Taylor is running a hand over his chin, leaning on the podium, saying, “Well, there _is_ a tradition of offering the young servicemen in town a basket of food in exchange for a dance during the Founders Festival—perhaps we could simply expand on the concept. I suppose we could all do our part.”

“Not… exactly what I had in mind,” Miss Patty says diplomatically.

Oliver tries to sink down in a chair that’s already far too small for his broad frame, as Thea cackles beside him. Felicity is clearly trying not to grin.

“I like where your head’s at, sugar,” Babette says in her smoky voice, and her small blonde head is definitely turned in Oliver’s direction when she adds, “Maybe we could get a preview of the goods.”

“Some of my best love affairs started with auctions,” Miss Patty says with a wistful sigh.

“Shall we vote on the idea?” Taylor asks the room.

“No,” Oliver finally says, not raising his voice but the firm tone carries through the room. Thea is still giggling, but everyone else falls silent. Felicity watches him with an expression torn between amusement and sympathy.

“Is that… your vote?” Taylor asks hesitantly. Since Oliver got back from overseas, Taylor’s previous disdain for one of Stars Hollow’s most “wayward youths” has morphed into a wariness overlying the same attempts at authority.

With his hands clasped casually in his lap, Oliver just repeats calmly, “No.”

The room’s eagerness deflates, as Miss Patty shrugs with a small pout. Kirk, still standing, begins to say, “We could still-” before Babette cuts him off with a sad, “Sit down, honey. It’s over.”

The rest of the discussion resolves quickly on a bake sale, before they start bickering again about gluten-free options and nut allergies, and finally Miss Patty yanks the gavel from Taylor’s hands and adjourns the meeting before he tries to hold one of the troubadours in contempt of the town, which isn’t a real thing. As the crowd disperses, Oliver follows Felicity and Thea out the doors into the slightly chilly autumn air.

“I can’t believe they tried to _sell_ you,” Thea says, chuckling with mischievous glee. “Oh, man, Roy is going to be so mad he missed this one.” She’s running across the street to the diner before he can stop her.

“I’m sorry that happened,” Felicity says, but she can’t keep the humor from her voice. “Though I have to say, it’s a bit of a shame. It would have been fun to try and get you for myself—in the auction, I mean. You know, to help the less fortunate. That’s all.”

Oliver grins at her grimace of embarrassment, and shakes his head.

He doesn’t tell her that she could have him any time she wanted. Because that’s not something friends say—even when it’s true.

“See you at the diner?” he asks, because that’s safer. And because she usually recovers from her embarrassment faster if he just pretends to ignore what she said.

She nods, her ponytail waving behind her head as she smiles that bright grin, filling him with that warmth again, before she’s turning to walk away through the town square towards the Kim house. Her pink jacket flutters behind her, topped by the yellow gold of her hair, a riot of color even in the dark of night.

Oliver stands and watches her until she reaches the Kim’s front door, though he tells himself he’s just lingering on the sidewalk to avoid walking in the same direction as Miss Patty and Babette.

But even after returning to the diner, he doesn’t take his eyes off the windows for more than a few seconds until Felicity and Lizzie walk up to the door, the bell chiming above them as they enter and his hand already reaching for the coffee pot. Only when he hears Felicity’s voice asking Lizzie about her homework, as Thea greets them from the counter, does he turn his back to the room so he can grab a mug for her.

He tells himself he is just watching out for her.

Because that’s what friends do.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lizzie has a birthday--with some familiar rituals, and something new.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I deliberately did not give Lizzie's age here, since I'm not exactly sure about the time passing in this fic, but she's around 8 or 9. And, as always, I'm trying to combine moments from the show with what I feel is true to these characters and these different circumstances, so some things may be familiar to those who know the show but they're not exactly the same. :) Hope you enjoy!

The old floorboards of the house creak beneath her feet as Felicity tiptoes through the kitchen in the shadows of early morning, easing open the door to her daughter’s bedroom to see the little girl curled up in her pink bed sheets, sleeping peacefully.

It is about time to put an end to that.

Still in her own loose pajamas, hair down and untamed, Felicity slips into the room and sits on the bed beside Lizzie’s small frame, taking a moment just to stare down at this little life. Her light brown hair falls over her button nose and tiny pink lips, fluttering with each breath she expels in sleep, her eyelashes dark against the cheeks that have lost the last plumpness of baby fat. Her hands are curled up beside her on her pillow—hands that can now write and draw and play the piano and even cook (better than Felicity, sometimes).

Felicity remembers the same fingers curling around just one of her own, when she hadn’t even realized hands could be that small—let alone that they could still hold her entire heart in their grasp.

As she takes one of her daughter’s hands in her own now, thumb stroking across the fingers that are quickly catching up in size with her own, Lizzie stirs and mumbles out a groggy, “Mom?”

She’s not sure where “Mommy” has gone in the last few months, though it still slips intermittently from her daughter’s lips. Her baby’s just growing up so fast.

“Hey, sweetheart,” Felicity whispers, leaning in to kiss her daughter’s forehead. “Happy birthday.”  

Lizzie’s eyes blink away the sleep, starting to spark with excitement. “It’s my birthday,” she whispers back with a smile.

“Mmhmm,” Felicity says, nodding as she crawls into the bed, still holding her daughter’s hand. “And at exactly this moment, many years ago, I got the best present anyone could ever ask for—and it wasn’t even my birthday! It was yours.”

“Was it me?”

“Clever girl.” Felicity rubs the tip of her nose against Lizzie’s, kissing the hands curled between them. “I love you, baby girl.”

“Love you, too,” Lizzie says softly.

Felicity lies back, tilting her head so it rests against her daughter’s, as the earliest light of dawn starts to glimmer at the edges of the window. “So how’s life so far? Besides having a pretty great mom, of course.”

“It’s good,” Lizzie says, yawning.

“Any complaints? Requests? This is that special day when you get whatever you want.”

“Can I go back to sleep?”

“Only if I get to sleep here with you,” Felicity says, letting go of Lizzie’s hand so she can wrap her arm beneath her daughter’s head and snuggle her against her side. For a little while longer, at least, her daughter still fits perfectly, their two petite frames entwined, Lizzie’s head on her shoulder.

“Okay, Mommy,” Lizzie murmurs as she settles quickly back into the easy sleep of childhood.

Felicity spends a few minutes just listening to her breathe, feeling the warmth against her collarbone, remembering the first breath that changed her life forever.

All she wants is for time to slow down and for this moment to never end, lying here with her daughter safe in her arms.

But this isn’t her special day, it’s Lizzie’s… and all her daughter wants is to grow up.

XXXXX

Lizzie bursts through the door to the Verdant Diner with more unbridled enthusiasm than she usually allows herself, running to hop onto a stool at the counter with a giddy bounce. Felicity is just struggling to keep up with her daughter’s energy today; her ritual of waking Lizzie up at the moment of her birth is getting harder and harder as she gets older, and she’s nearly as excited as her daughter to reach the place with the coffee.

But Oliver frowns over at them both, leaning on the counter and shaking his head. “Can’t sit there.”

“What?” Felicity and Lizzie both say at the exact same time, with what must be nearly identical expressions, startling a smile out of Oliver’s serious face—which he quickly puts back into place, as Felicity realizes it’s a tease of some kind.

But Lizzie doesn’t, adding with a slight whine, “It’s my birthday, Oliver—I want to sit at the counter like a grown-up, with you.”

The added “with you” clearly doesn’t help his efforts to be tough, but he continues bravely on, saying, “Sorry, that’s not your seat.” He points over to the corner. “That is.”

Lizzie whips her head around and gasps in delight, turning back with a big grin. “For me?”

“Unless there’s someone else here who has a birthday today,” Oliver says.

“Actually, you know, it’s my-” Kirk starts from where he sits a few seats down the counter, but Oliver just gives him a look, and he looks back down at his scrambled eggs in cowed silence. When Oliver moves to come around the edge of the counter, though, he stops and lifts the lid off the cake plate piled with donuts. “Take one on the house, Kirk,” he says, before walking over to the table where Lizzie runs to meet him.

It’s just a few balloons floating on colored strings, above a coffee cake with candles waiting to be lit—nothing showy or extravagant. But it must make Lizzie feel special as she sits down with a broad smile unlike her usual reserved self, watching Oliver light the candles on the coffee cake and undoubtedly enjoying the man’s undivided attention. For a girl whose own father sent her gift a month early (and a gift card at that), it must feel like the world.

Felicity watches Oliver standing over her daughter’s perfect birthday morning with her own feelings stirring within. She doesn’t even realize she hasn’t had her coffee yet, until Thea is handing her a mug with a smile of her own, before heading over to hand Lizzie a present in a pink paper bag. Lizzie pulls out the t-shirt emblazoned with Hermione Granger’s face and the journal styled like a book of spells with a squeal of glee; she and Thea had watched the first movie together a couple weeks ago, after Felicity read her the first book, and it was all she talked about now.

Watching the girls hug, Felicity steps up beside Oliver, still standing over the table. “Thank you,” she says, with almost desperate sincerity in her voice. “This means so much to her, I just…”

“It’s not much,” he says with a shrug, but she puts her hand on the side of his arm (and tells herself it’s just to emphasize her words, not to feel up the _unbelievable_ muscle beneath the fabric of his Henley), and he looks at her.

“It’s a lot. Really.”

He smiles softly, and nods, then gestures for her to sit. “I wasn’t sure if you liked coffee cake,” he says to Lizzie, after she blows out the candles at Thea’s urging.

“Does it have chocolate chips?” Lizzie asks, as Felicity cuts her a slice.

“Of course,” Oliver says solemnly.

Lizzie takes a small bite and then smiles up at him, nodding with the pronouncement of a judge on a cooking show. “It’s really good.”

“Oh my _god_ ,” Felicity says, taking her own bite and finding much less composure than her daughter. “This is amazing—this is the best thing I’ve ever had in my mouth. Wait, I could’ve said that better. I just mean it’s good, like really good, like I need all of it in me now—no, that’s not… Someone stop me, please.”

“Mom,” Lizzie says, in the firm little tone that she knows by now will stop her mother’s rambling, though she’s still too young to fully understand _why_ the rambling is so, _so_ bad.

Thea laughs loudly, before Oliver shoos her back to watch the counter. He’s smirking himself, as he says, “I’m glad you like it.”

“Did you _make_ this?” Felicity asks, gaping up at him. He looks like _that_ and he can cook like _this?_ Is this man even _real_?

“I did,” he replies, and she swears he almost winks at her.

“Thank you, Oliver,” Lizzie says. She’s oblivious to the way her mother is practically drooling, and not entirely because of the delicious coffee cake. But the depth of feeling in her daughter’s voice distracts her from her own delusions, and Felicity can see the cautious affection shining in Lizzie’s eyes. She hates that it’s cautious, hates that there has even been a moment in her young daughter’s life when she felt anything less than completely loved, but she loves the way her baby girl is opening herself up to new love and friendship in her life.

When Felicity looks up at Oliver, she can understand why… even when that very fragile affection is the reason Felicity can’t let those feelings in herself.

Or maybe Lizzie isn’t the only one who’s been hurt.

“You’re welcome,” Oliver says, in that soft deep voice that makes Felicity’s hand curl involuntarily around the fork in her hand. “Happy birthday.”

Lizzie grins and happily takes another big bite of her coffee cake, swinging her feet from her chair even though her legs are long enough to reach the ground now. A customer arguing with Thea calls Oliver away, and Lizzie asks if she can change into her Hermione t-shirt before school.

Felicity wonders if even the party she has planned for later can live up to this morning in her daughter’s eyes.

As she catches Oliver glancing at Lizzie’s happy face and smiling, she can’t find it in herself to mind. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Founder's Day Firelight Festival is here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so, so sorry for the wait on this!! I won't bog this down with excuses--I truly hope the next chapter won't take as long, but I don't want to make any false promises. Thank you to all who return to this fic despite my dreadful update schedule. <3
> 
> Now onto more pining!Oliver! :D

There’s a hum of excitement in the air, a constant murmur of conversation and a scattering of people gathered throughout the town square, spilling into his diner with giggles and the eager making of plans.

And Oliver hates it.

He may hate it less if it didn’t happen with every silly event this town put on, if they didn’t treat each time like it was the first and last, if it didn’t turn the already scanty parking for his diner into a nightmare and block his supply deliveries—if it didn’t come with Taylor hassling him about putting decorations inside his window and offering themed food. Oliver didn’t mind the influx of customers, and he didn’t truly begrudge the others their fun; but he liked keeping his diner as stalwart and reliable as ever. Same look, same food, same place. It soothed him.

Bustling swarms of people going on about hokey town traditions were not soothing.

“You’re no fun, Ollie,” Thea says with a pout, standing behind the counter at his side. “You used to like this stuff when we were kids.”

“Things are different now,” he says softly.

He doesn’t say that the only tolerable parts of those festivals, as he got older, was sneaking Founder’s Day punch with Tommy and hitting on girls. Or that Mom was the only one who could find decorations for the diner that satisfied the town while also staying above kitschy. Or that fighting with Taylor makes him remember Dad fighting with Taylor, arguing about what was best for the good of the town.

And every festival he feels like he’s drowning in memories of what he’s lost—and it only makes him wonder what is left to look forward to.

“Maybe things will change again,” Thea says with a smirk, just as the bell above the door rings and Felicity walks in with Lizzie in tow.

He gives Thea a small glare—encouraging her assumptions about them will only make his resolution to stay away from the bubbly young woman even harder to keep—and reaches for the coffee automatically as Felicity steps up to the counter.

“You are my hero,” she breathes as she accepts the mug of hot liquid and breathes in its sharp scent. He ignores the stirring in his gut at the little moan caught in her throat as she takes the first sip, her eyes fluttering closed.

“What’s going on out there?” Lizzie asks, looking back at the bustling workers in the town square stringing lights through the trees and hanging streamers around the gazebo in the center.

“We were almost crushed by a papier mache star on our way here,” Felicity adds. “Okay, maybe you can’t be _crushed_ by papier mache, but it had very pointy ends—and I hate paper cuts, they’re the worst.”

“What? Who was hanging them?” he asks, perhaps a bit disproportionately concerned. He tells himself he’s always worried about the cavalier way the town lets unlicensed professionals do heavy lifting and construction for these things.

“It’s the Founder’s Day Firelight Festival,” Thea answers Lizzie, ignoring him entirely.

As she goes on to explain to the girl about the founders of the town, the young couple who found each other through the woods by a trail of starlight and lit a bonfire in what is now the town square, Felicity happily sips her coffee and watches him over the rim of the mug. Her bright blue eyes shine through the frames of her glasses, the curve of her pink lips curled in a tiny private smile, and he finds his gaze lingering far too long on her as his own unexpected smile pulls at the muscles of his cheek.

Then Lizzie is asking her mom a question, tearing her eyes away from him, and Oliver feels the release of the spell she has over him. He takes the freedom to turn back towards the kitchen, checking on Roy who’s flipping hash browns on the griddle and going about with his everyday routine like Oliver should be.

Instead, all he wants to do is find out if Felicity is going to that godforsaken festival.

He shakes off the thought with a round of coffee for the _other_ customers in the diner, whom he sometimes forgets when she’s around. Babette thanks him with a raucous laugh as she pats him on the arm, asking if he’s going to the festival with anyone special. When she winks over at Felicity’s back with an exaggerated expression, he keeps his face blank and moves on to the next table.

Either Thea is spreading rumors around town…

Or he’s not hiding it from others as well as he’s hiding it from himself.

He nudges Thea back towards the apartment stairs when he returns to the counter, since it’s getting close to the start of school, and she goes with a roll of her eyes and a flip of her brown curls. Even though she’s been working in the diner since she was tall enough to look over the counter, she’s only just starting to look like an adult to him… almost. He’s not sure how to feel about that.

“So can we go, Mom?” Lizzie is asking Felicity when he slides their orders across the counter to them.

Felicity turns to look at him, snagging him to a stop with just her gaze. “What do you think, Oliver? Is it something she could enjoy?”

He looks over at Lizzie, whose brown hair is pulled back at the nape of her neck, her ears sticking slightly too far out of the sides of her head, with little sparkly stars shining at her earlobes (when he peers a little closer, he sees they’re just plastic stickers). She’s grown so much even since he met her, more and more of her mom’s sharp intelligence sparking in her eyes.

“They have a lot of food, and they light the bonfire early enough,” he says with a shrug. “Not as many games as the other ones, though.”

“The other ones?” Felicity asks.

“You haven’t noticed how many festivals and carnivals this town has?” He knows his voice grumbles a bit with annoyance, not quite the champion of town pride that the local diner owner should be.

But Felicity smiles in sympathy. “I suppose I had noticed—I sort of thought maybe everyone in the town just liked hanging out in the town square every weekend, hanging decorations and setting up booths. I’m new to the area; that seems like something small town people do.”

“It’s something these small town people do. A lot.”

“So can we _go_?” Lizzie asks again, a bit impatiently.

“Yes, yes, we can go,” Felicity says, before pointing at the eggs on her daughter’s plate. “Now eat.”

“Are you going, Oliver?” Lizzie asks as she takes a tiny bite of the scrambled eggs.

He pauses, taking a breath, preparing to say no… when he sees the identical expressions of anticipation on their faces. Felicity’s is a bit more concealed, her focus mostly on the bite of toast she’s taking, other than the glance towards him out of the corners of her eyes—but Lizzie is smiling up at him, her front teeth a little too big and one of her other teeth missing, having fallen out last week.

As he expels a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding, he realizes two things. He’s in a lot deeper than he thought, because he can’t say no to those two sets of blue eyes.

And, for the first time in years, he’s going to the Founder’s Day Firelight Festival.

XXXXX

The entire town square glimmers with strings of white lights, the gazebo in the center wrapped in garlands and draperies of pink and gold. Just in front of it, a pile of timbers lean into a pyramid of firewood, waiting to be lit ablaze. Little blue stars hang from the branches of the trees…

And then there’s the large pale blue stars hanging from wires strung between the lamp posts. Oliver glares at them, though when Thea teases him, he tells her he’s just checking their stability.

What seems to be the entire town is crowded over the grass as the final light of sunset fades away, leaving the dark sky above sprinkled with stars. Most are gathered into couples, arms wrapped around one another, heads leaned on each other’s shoulders as they wait. Oliver stops Thea at the periphery, watching with his arms crossed over his chest.

There are not many children here, but a few dart between the coffee cart and the booth selling twinkling jewelry, and he watches nonchalantly for Lizzie… and her mom.

But of course, when Lizzie appears, she’s not running like the other kids. She’s bundled in a puffy light pink coat, a paper cup of hot chocolate in her hands, looking up at her mom as they walk. Felicity’s saying something with a multitude of gestures, her own large cup of coffee held precariously in one swinging hand. With her hair down in a long curtain of straight blonde hair over the shoulders of her dark maroon jacket, she looks casual and happy…

And beautiful. He looks down at the ground and shifts on his feet, just to distract himself as her voice nears and he hears her talking about a carnival where she threw up on a clown.

“ _Mom_ ,” Lizzie is saying in protest, either out of embarrassment or disgust, and Felicity’s story jerks to a stop as she reaches them.  She smiles and greets Thea, then turns to look at him. He can almost imagine something… _more_ in her eyes when she looks at him, saying, “Hi,” softly, tucking her hair behind her ear as the chilly breeze tosses it around her face.

“Hi,” he says back simply. Thea watches him with a satisfied smile, and he ignores her.

“I didn’t know this many people lived in this town,” Felicity says, looking around the crowds gathered around the gazebo. “Lots of… couples.”

Her voice quiets on the last word, as though she already realizes the awkwardness of pointing this out while standing beside him, beneath the lamppost wrapped in sparkling lights. The glow cascades down her blonde hair, catching on her glasses when she tilts her glance towards him briefly before darting away. His arms are still crossed tightly across his chest, but he can feel her shoulder nearly brushing against his bicep, and he considers dropping his hands just to feel his knuckles graze against hers.

Or maybe he’s reading too much into all of this. Maybe it’s just his eyes that can’t bear to stay away from her bright colors and flashing smile for more than a moment; maybe it’s just his skin that itches through the layers of his jacket and shirt with her being so close; maybe it’s just his ears that can pick out the sound of her laugh and the rapid mutter of her voice from across a crowded room.

And it shouldn’t even be that, he reminds himself. The nightmares still wake him at night, cold sweat slick down the center of his back and his hands trembling, the scars stark against his bare skin. They are the marks of a survivor—but he only survived because others did not. He imagines Felicity’s soft fingers skating across them, and he’s torn between a throb of heat low in his belly… and a vicious stab of nauseating guilt. Her life should be laughter and smiles and light, not the clinging stain of darkness he brings with him, even in the easy simplicity of Stars Hollow.

He’s torn from the shadowy spiral of his thoughts by the stirring of the crowd, who are roused by the mayor’s speech and subsequent fumbles for a way to light the bonfire. Lizzie is bouncing on her tiptoes, trying to see through the thicket of couples towards the pyramid of firewood in the center, only held back from pushing closer by Felicity’s grip on her hand.

As the moment nears, she grows a little more frantic, jumping up to see over the shoulders pressed together and knitted hats leaning in together—and she reminds him suddenly of Thea, a growing gangly thing still too small for the world.

So he doesn’t give it too much thought when he bends down and tells Felicity with a gesture towards his back, “Here, let me—do you mind?”

Felicity shakes her head with a smile, biting her bottom lip as she yanks Lizzie back towards him. With a happy laugh, Lizzie clambers onto his back and he stands back up, hands beneath her knobby knees as she clings to his shoulders. Her clunky pink sneakers dangle against his thighs, and she loops her arms around his neck while peering over his head. It’s been a while since he held Thea like this, though there was a time when she demanded this form of transportation everywhere, especially around these unending festivals. When he looks over at her, Thea looks back with a knowing smile, a shared memory untainted by her latest teenage melodrama.

Then they’re all watching the blundering attempts to actually light the thing, as though they don’t go through this every single year, and Thea is rolling her eyes and back to her cynical smirk. Lizzie gives a thrilled gasp as the fire starts, clapping her mitten-clad hands in front of his face when everyone applauds—even though, to him, it’s not a very impressive display. The fire crackles as it spreads slowly up the pyre, and the crowd watches with a lazy sense of habit before dispersing to the food carts and trinket stands around the town square.

“I’m going back to the diner,” Thea announces, as Oliver kneels down to drop Lizzie from his back. The girl meanders immediately towards the blaze, with Felicity following to keep her at a safe distance. “I _said_ , I’m leaving,” Thea repeats, to finally draw his gaze away from their silhouettes outlined in the flames.

“I’ll be there soon,” he says.

“Not too soon, I hope.” She jerks her head in Felicity’s direction. “It’s the Firelight Festival, Ollie. Guaranteed to get you laid.”

“Thea,” he scowls, but she’s laughing and walking away.

Now Taylor and Miss Patty have cornered Felicity and Lizzie near the bonfire, and as he approaches, he hears them arguing over whether the fire was built for warmth or for the young couple to throw themselves onto it in a suicide pact. It’s an argument he heard them having in his diner earlier, only now Felicity’s looking back and forth between them, bewildered, and Lizzie frowns up in adorable confusion.

“Taylor, that’s a bit much right now, isn’t it?” Oliver asks when he reaches them, and Felicity turns to him gratefully.

“Quite the contrary—we are just taking the opportunity to teach Miss Smoak and her daughter about the history of our town,” Taylor says, straightening his back with an air of authority. “She had only just arrived here at last year’s festival, and now that she’s a resident, she should know how the town began.”

“With a suicide pact, apparently,” Felicity mumbles. “A bit dark, though, for a town founding. I mean, not literally dark, as they used a bonfire to do it—but still, not very welcoming. ‘Come to Stars Hollow, where the founders killed themselves rather than live here’? Not exactly something you want on the welcome mat.”

Everyone’s silent for a moment, as Felicity’s mutter fades away. Lizzie lets out a little sigh.

Then Miss Patty cuts in, saying in a recovered voice, “Don’t listen to Taylor, dear. They just built the fire for warmth.”

Taylor clears his throat as he lifts his hand. “Now, Miss Patty, _I_ am the recording secretary-”

“We’ll leave you guys to it,” Oliver says, gently pulling Felicity away by the elbow, Lizzie following behind them as they make their escape.

“They’re… intense,” Felicity says, making a little exploding gesture with her hands as they walk. Oliver stifles a smile at the expression on her face.

“What’s a suicide pact?” Lizzie asks.

“It’s a bad grown-up thing,” Felicity answers quickly.  

“When do I get to be a grown-up and know things?”

“A long, long time from now,” Felicity says, as she strokes a hand over her daughter’s hair and presses a kiss to the top of her head. She doesn’t have to lean down very far to reach her.

They come to the corner of the block, as the festival decorations and the hum of the crowds fade away, and they’re left beneath the last tree to be covered in glittering lights. Lizzie spots Lane and Mrs. Kim walking hurriedly down the block, and Felicity gives her permission to go say hello, watching her daughter’s restrained dash towards her friend.

Leaving Oliver and Felicity alone.

“It was nice,” Felicity says to break the sudden silence. “The festival, I mean. I could’ve done without the talk of suicide—I think it kind of dampens the festival spirit, but still… It was nice.”

“Yeah,” he replies, a bit uncertainly.

Because even though the festival itself was the same ridiculousness he’s used to… now he’s here standing beside her, beneath the warm lights spilling over her shoulders and glinting off the silver buckles of her jacket, turning her into a constellation of stars. And he can’t stop staring at her plump pink lips, which are falling from a polite smile, parting as she takes a breath. Her blue eyes shift between meeting his gaze straight on… and his mouth, making him pinch his lips together in a conscious awareness thrumming through his veins.

He could lean in, right now, and kiss her. He can already taste the coffee on her lips, feel her small intake of breath, smell the coconut of her shampoo as he would drag his fingers through the loose strands of her hair to cradle her head in his hands. She would be warm and soft and welcoming, as her tiny hands would clench around the sleeves of his jacket and tug him towards her, and he would never get enough of her.

So he won’t even start—it’s easier to step away when he doesn’t know what he’s missing.

He breaks away from her soft gaze, and the cold winter air rushes in between them. Felicity looks down at the pavement, then over at her daughter, seeing the Kims walking away towards their house.

“I better take her home,” she says, and if he imagines the chipper tone of her voice is a bit forced, he allows himself that much. “Thank you for coming—to the festival, obviously, what else would I… You know what I mean.”

“You’re welcome,” he says, a small smile flashing across his face as her hand flutters in a hasty wave and she starts walking away.

For one moment, he imagines reaching out and grabbing her arm, hauling her back into his embrace and swallowing her adorable rambles against his lips. How seizing hold of the light might be his only way out of the dark… or it might drag her into it with him.

So he watches her walk away and does nothing.

When he returns to the diner, he doesn’t really pay attention to the half-finished clean-up and the lights left on despite the empty rooms. He absentmindedly locks the doors and heads up the stairs to the apartment, hearing the scrape of furniture over the wooden floorboards just as he’s unlocking the door and pushing it open…

To see Thea furiously making out with Roy in the middle of the room.

They break apart with a guilty leap as he accidentally bangs the door against the wall, and he wants to un-see the reddened lips and tousled hair of his baby sister—or Roy’s guilty grimace above the t-shirt that’s been yanked halfway up his stomach.

“ _Out_!” Oliver shouts, restraining himself from physical violence against his fry cook as the young man grabs his sweatshirt from the back of a kitchen chair and scurries around him.

“Um, Oliver, I’m sor-”

“Just… out.” His voice has quieted to a deep and weary mutter, because he knows he can’t fire Roy for this (and have someone new to cook by the next morning). He hears the rapid clatter of Roy’s footsteps down the stairs, and the back entrance being shut tight behind him as he leaves.

“Come on, Ollie, we were just-”

“I’m really not in the mood, Thea,” Oliver says. The last thing he wants to do right now is discuss his little sister’s love life; not that he _ever_ wants to discuss that or know that it even exists, but especially not with his own _lack_ of love life still raw and itching across his skin.

“It’s just… it’s the _Firelight_ Festival, I told you that it-” 

“Not. Now.” He sighs and shuts the bathroom door behind him, hearing her frustrated sigh as she stomps into her room, slamming the door shut behind her. He knew the teenage years would bring all of this, knew he would have to handle it himself after the accident.

But did it have to start tonight?

Oliver stares into the mirror, running a hand over the back of his neck, letting himself fall back into the imaginary timeline where this night had gone differently. Where he was with Felicity right now, a true smile on his face that he can only seem to find with her. Where she would know what do with Thea, and their two soft voices in another part of his home, with Lizzie’s innocent questions piping up throughout, becomes the soundtrack of his life.

He knows he did the right thing in not seizing hold of that other world.

That doesn’t mean he can’t live in it in his dreams.

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Snow comes to Stars Hollow... and with it a surprise visitor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of my New Years resolution is to get better about updating this fic, so I sincerely hope the next chapter doesn't take as long (this was supposed to be a fun drabble series, dammit!). Thank you to all those who are sticking around--I hope you enjoy the new chapter! :D

She can smell it in the air, even before she opens her eyes, even though all the windows in her bedroom are sealed. There’s a crisp chill seeping through the walls, a sharpness to the light piercing through the blinds. And with the familiarity of a lifelong love, Felicity smiles into her pillow and whispers softly, “Hello, snow.”

Because she knows when she peeks out the window, that is what she’ll see, even though the lawn was green and the pavement bare when she went to sleep.

For now, though, the sheets and blankets wrapped thoroughly around her are so warm, she’s not sure where her bare toes end and the fleece begins. A Saturday morning means she can sleep in, without a shift at Tech Village until Monday and no need to hasten Lizzie off to school. No doubt her early-rising daughter is already up, reading in her room, but she knows better than to wake her mom unless it’s something important. At this moment, the most important thing in the world is the way Felicity can close her bleary eyes again, snuggling deep into the fading scent of fabric softener on her pillow, cozily warm as her pajama pants bunch up around her knees.

Snow had been a rare sight in Vegas, and when it did appear, it was a scattering of flakes that melted before they even hit the ground. But sometimes, on her days off, her mother would take her into the mountains to see the snow… and Felicity fell in love. She remembers the sunlight glittering over the smooth surface, the taste of the flakes landing on her outstretched tongue, the crunch of the snowballs compacted in her hands.

When she needed to get away from her mother, from Vegas, she ran towards snow. And somehow ended up in Stars Hollow, Connecticut.

The first snow she experienced here, after smelling the faintest thread of it in the air, had her waking Lizzie up in the middle of the night to see it for herself. They stood out on the lawn in their slippers and bulky coats, arms crossed over their chests as they shivered, heads tilted back to feel the large flakes dance softly across their faces. Both of them had yawned over their coffee and hot chocolate at the diner the next morning, but it had been worth it.

Now, with that first snow melted and the winter season well underway, Felicity feels her ritual of welcoming the snow can wait until a later hour. Maybe she and Lizzie can make a snowman in the contest they were having in the town square.

She contemplates designs as she starts slipping back into the warm haze of sleep—maybe a Wonder Woman snowwoman, or a Princess Leia… they could use cinnamon rolls for the hair; they’d stay cold, wouldn’t they?

But the slow descent back into sleep is startled by a noise, jolting her entire body as her heart races, her thoughts leaping to identify it.

_Scraaaaaape_. _Scraaaaaape_.

Right outside her house, something dragging across the asphalt of the driveway, and that’s when she figures it out.

Someone is shoveling her driveway. And she doesn’t really even have to look to know who it is, but she still groans and starts to stir from the deep abyss of her cocoon.

Draped in the blankets she yanks from her bed, hair hanging in tousled strands over her glasses, Felicity shuffles over to the window. And when she parts the curtains and flips open the blinds, squinting through the onslaught of reflected light, the figure in the driveway is exactly who she expected.

Oliver’s broad shoulders hunch forward as he bends to thrust the shovel back into the snow. He looks more massive than ever in the puffy thickness of his black jacket, his jeans darkening with moisture over his heavy brown boots. No hat or scarf obscures the lines of his jaw and snow-dusted hair as he turns towards the house, his breath huffing past his lips in wisps of white steam.

Before she has a chance to duck away from the window, he must see her, because his scanning glance across the house pauses in her direction.

She looks like a mess, she thinks, though at least the shroud of thick blankets curled around her hides the thin X-files t-shirt she sleeps in—the one that’s too small and leaves a strip of bare stomach above her cupcake print pajama pants. And there he is, shadow of stubble across his stupidly handsome face, cheeks dimpling slightly with the small smile across his lips.

Even though she’s not sure how much he can see of her, she gives a tight smile back and sticks her hand out of the layers of blankets for a tiny awkward wave.

He lifts a hand from the shovel to wave back, and at least he was sensible enough to wear gloves.

For a brief moment, she just stares at him, eyes locked on his through the haze of frost across the window panes. His smile widens, and then he’s shaking his head through the flurry of snowflakes caught in his beard, turning back to the strip of asphalt he’s revealed.

He resumes his shoveling—and she can’t stop staring at the expanse of his back, the power in his thighs as he lifts the weight of snow onto the shovel, the clenching of his ass in his jeans as he stands abruptly to toss the snow aside. Felicity runs her fingers absentmindedly through the frost on the glass, dragging her chilled fingertips across her slightly flushed cheeks.

Just friends, right?

Her bare feet start to cool against the floorboards, and she looks back at her warm bed with a sigh. She’s up now, and she should probably make some coffee to offer Oliver—that’s perfectly friendly, to repay the favor with a warm beverage, to invite him in to drink it… After dropping the blankets to the floor and kicking them back towards the bed, she spends longer than normal choosing the blue sweater and slim black pants to wear for the day. It’s a little dressier than the baggy sweatpants and stained Bellagio hoodie she’d planned on wearing to watch Netflix with Lizzie.

Thinking of her daughter, once she’s dressed and bounding down the creaking stairs in her R2-D2 slippers, Felicity listens for the sounds of Lizzie flipping pages or munching on cereal. But when she reaches Lizzie’s bedroom door, her heart stutters in her chest at the sight of the empty room, the house suddenly silent in a way that echoes in her ears.

She shouldn’t let Lizzie be so self-sufficient just because she’s mature for her age, shouldn’t have just gone back to sleep without at least checking on her, shouldn’t assume that just because this town is so safe—

But before she can work herself into a full panic, she hears a sudden high-pitched peal of laughter from outside, definitely not Oliver’s. By the time she’s hurried to the front door, she’s calm enough to notice Lizzie’s pink boots missing from the mat, her winter coat not on its hook, her mittens and hat gone from the basket by the door. Felicity hastily throws on her own coat and boots, shivering as she opens the door and steps out into the harsh wind cutting across the porch.

Lizzie lies in a bright pink heap on the ground, sprawled across the drifts of white snow that was once their front lawn. The remains of a snowball are scattered across her chest. As she sits up, the pom pom of yarn on the top of her hat sags to the side, the ear flaps lopsided on her head.

“Mom!” she calls out, climbing to her feet to jog through the snow towards her. Her eyes are bright above her wide grin, the tip of her nose reddened in the cold. “Join our snowball fight! You can be on my team.”

“Snowball fight?” Felicity repeats, automatically reaching up to tug Lizzie’s hat back into place over her ears. Then she looks over to Oliver, who manages to look a little sheepish as he brushes the snow from his black gloves.

“He’s got really good aim.” Lizzie points to a skinny birch tree across the yard. “He hit that tree all the way from here, and he got me even though I was running around. You should go over by the garage and see if he can reach you!”

“No matter where I went, I’m sure he could hit it,” Felicity says, then closes her eyes as Oliver blinks. “With snowballs, I mean. He shouldn’t be hitting people with anything else.” She takes a breath before she can clarify that statement any further, as her mind leaps ahead to imagine just what “else” he might “hit” people with… but she’s already had to carefully explain too many vague innuendos to her young daughter—why does every single word in the English language also mean sex?

Or maybe it’s just been so long that she can’t think of anything else…

“I should have called to see if it was okay to come by,” Oliver says, tactfully ignoring her statement. “I didn’t realize you’d still be sleeping.”

She remembers the vision she must have made, standing in the window wrapped in her sheets and barely awake, and nearly winces. Instead, she shakes her head, digging her icy hands into her pockets to fish out her own gloves.

“No, really, it’s okay—great, even, you shoveling for us… You don’t have to…”

“I don’t mind,” Oliver says softly, and when she looks up from tugging the gloves past her wrists, he’s watching her with that unreadable expression on his face again. The same one he wore at the Firelight Festival, where she felt like he was about to reach towards her and maybe... Even now, standing several yards away across the expanse of snow, Felicity feels a tug deep in her stomach to move towards him—as though every movement she makes is somehow in his direction, no matter where he stands.

But, just like that night, he breaks away and she’s left with only the delusions in her own mind.

He reaches down to pick up the shovel from the ground, saying, “Maybe I should get back to it.”

Then a snowball smacks him in the thigh, splattering over his jeans.

“Liz!” Felicity looks over at her daughter, who throws her mittens over her face as she giggles, and she tries to summon the proper scolding for throwing snow at people—but she can’t. There are moments when her daughter’s serious, unflappable nature is a welcome gift, and in the seismic shift of moving here to Stars Hollow, she’s been so glad for Lizzie’s stability. But there are also moments when she worries that she’s put her own comfort as a young, uncertain mother over making sure Lizzie has the childhood she deserves. Seeing her laugh and play, even as she gets older, is something she cherishes.

And Oliver doesn’t seem to mind, his eyes sparking with mischief as he stumbles back an exaggerated distance, boots sliding through the mounting snow. He releases a grunt and an, “Ow,” that should _not_ be as hot as it is. As he bends down to scoop up his own snowball for retaliation, his eyes flicker to Felicity, silently asking if it’s okay.

When she looks back at her daughter’s eager face, how could she possibly say no?

That’s how Felicity ends up running through the yard, kicking up snow that’s soaking through her pants, giving a little shriek as the snowball strikes her shoulder before she can duck behind the tree. Somehow her daughter has become some kind of double agent, laughing as she hides behind a bush and flinging loose clumps of snow at both of them. Oliver stands openly in the yard, somehow able to dodge anything they manage to get near him. His lips twitch into a smirk when Felicity peeks around the edge of the tree trunk to glare at him.

None of them are paying attention when the cab rolls to a stop in the street.

The high-pitched squeal that shatters the insulated hush of the world freezes Felicity far more effectively than the icy cold. She closes her eyes tightly, leaning back against the tree for strength, as the woman jumping up and down beside the cab continues to giggle loudly.

“Nonna!” Lizzie yells out happily, leaving the shelter of the bush to sprint across the yard as Donna Smoak holds out her arms and bounces eagerly. As Lizzie’s pink coat is swallowed up in the sleeves of Donna’s glittering blue jacket, Felicity takes a breath and forces herself out from the shelter of the tree. Oliver slowly walks towards them, a curious smile spreading across his face.

“Hi… Mom,” Felicity says with a sigh, joining them at the curb as her mother shakes Lizzie back and forth in delight. Oliver, reaching them at the same time, does a double take and mouths, “Mom?”

Because other than the blue eyes and bright blonde hair (which, in Felicity’s case, is dyed), there’s little to show that the vibrant, sparkling woman standing in the snow is her mother. Donna’s head is topped with a dark blue wool hat, woven with crystals, the low V-neck of her tight sweater just visible between the edges of her coat and beneath the loop of her scarf. She squeezes Lizzie’s cheeks with her hands, dropping noisy kisses on her upturned nose.

“Look at you, my baby girl, you’ve gotten so big,” Donna coos, before releasing Lizzie’s face to reach out and snag Felicity in towards her. “And _oh,_ I’ve missed you so much, sweetheart.”

“Missed you too, Mom,” Felicity mutters over her shoulder. Most of her is still reeling from the fact that she had no time to prepare for this… but the smell of her mother’s sweet floral perfume and the jingle of her dangling earrings brings with it memories of warmth and Vegas and home. She misses it more than she realized.

She feels the moment her mother sees Oliver, because Donna’s arm tightens around her neck and then releases suddenly, as Donna’s hands flutter up automatically to fix her hair into perfect curls against her collarbone. “Felicity, honey, who is _this_?” she asks in a sugary tone.

“Mom, this is my friend, Oliver Queen,” Felicity says, turning to Oliver who’s looking back and forth between them with a growing smile. “Oliver, this is my-”

“Donna Smoak,” her mother says, holding out a bare hand with long pink nails. It’s quickly engulfed in Oliver’s large grip, her bracelets clinking as they slide down her wrist. “You’re Felicity’s _friend_ , huh?”

“ _Mom-_ ”

“Yes, I am,” Oliver says, unfazed, a grin turning his face somehow even more handsome—which makes their “friendship” something that clenches in her stomach. But she ignores the sudden pang, focusing on bracing herself for her mother’s next move, as Oliver says to Donna, “It’s so nice to meet you.”

“And you,” Donna replies, her hand lingering in the air as his pulls away, before drifting back to cup her cheek. She looks a bit bedazzled, which Felicity completely understands.

“Nonna, come see our house,” Lizzie says, oblivious to the awkwardness of the adults around her. She still uses the version of “Nana” that they had coined when she was a baby, when Donna had insisted she was far too young to be called, “Grandma.” Especially because her own daughter was still in her teens.

Donna lets Lizzie drag her towards the house, as Felicity pays the cabbie and Oliver reaches down to grab the bags (the size of which has Felicity worried, given the longer trip they indicate).

“I’ll just drop these off and finish the driveway,” he says, as they walk together up the front steps.

“No, please, come in—have some coffee,” Felicity says. She hadn’t yet had her own coffee this morning, and that’s something she plans to remedy immediately; she needs to be at full strength to deal with her mother. “I need something hot in me right about now—how about you?”

It’s the first time she’s wished for the creaky wood porch to _actually_ collapse and swallow her whole, but Oliver just releases a huff of breath that might be laughter as he holds open the front door for her. Inside, Lizzie’s excited voice is pointing out the different things in her room, and Donna is happily fussing over every detail. The sounds of their voices together takes her back to living in Vegas, cramped in that tiny apartment, hearing them laugh and dance together in the family room as she hunched over her computer and tried to code her way to a new life. There’s a heady mix of nostalgia and guilt provoked by the memory—she doesn’t want to go back, but it wasn’t all bad.

But part of the new life she’s found is following her into the foyer, stripping the coat from his shoulders to reveal the dark green sweater beneath. Felicity fidgets with her glasses, letting her gaze run over the shifting muscles beneath the smooth fabric, nearly biting her lip when Oliver rolls up his sleeves to reveal taut forearms as he moves with a heavy tread towards the kitchen. She follows in the wake of his broad back, nearly pouncing on the coffee pot before her groggy mind forces her to do something she’ll regret.

Like touch him. He’s so _close_ … was her kitchen always this small?

Donna and Lizzie spilling into the space makes it even more cramped, until Oliver and Felicity are standing shoulder to shoulder against the counter. His fingertips brush against her knuckles as he takes the mug of coffee she hands him, with Donna’s sharp eyes darting between their hands and Felicity’s face, where she’s biting her bottom lip as she pulls her hand back to her own mug. The ceramic nearly burns against her chilled fingers… but it’s nothing compared to the searing shock of that skimming touch.

What is _wrong_ with her today? Her mother is trying to stifle a smug smile, like she managed to solve one of Felicity’s puzzles before she could. And Lizzie is grabbing the milk to make a bowl of cereal for herself, unaffected by the tense silence in the room.

“So, Oliver, how did you become friends with my girls?” Donna asks.

“I own a diner in town—your daughter is one of my best customers,” Oliver says, lips curled slightly at the edges.

“Oh, you feed them, that explains it,” she says, blinking when Felicity scowls. “What? I know I didn’t raise you to be much of a cook, Felicity.”

“Oliver makes the best pancakes,” Lizzie chimes in from her seat at the table between them.

“Thank you, Lizzie,” he says, his eyes softening as he looks almost surprised at the compliment. He has to know he’s an amazing cook, right?  

“At least I know someone is making sure my girls are eating right.” Donna tilts her head, golden curls perfectly framing her cleavage. “A man who cooks… a very _handsome_ man…”

“Mom, please,” Felicity says. She rubs her fingers against her temple, feeling a headache coming on. And the morning had started out so simple and promising.

“Who knew Connecticut had anyone who looks like you?” she says with a giggle. “No wonder Felicity had to move all the way out here to the middle of nowhere.”

Oliver takes the comment with a polite smile, either oblivious to or ignoring the hint of tension beneath the words. It’s a fight that will never really end—why she moved so far away, why she took Lizzie away from Vegas and their life together. And yet with every additional moment in this kitchen, Felicity remembers exactly why it was so necessary.

Her mother is best taken in small doses, where absence can make their relationship fonder.

After a few more awkward pleasantries, Oliver insists he go back out and finish shoveling the driveway, and Felicity doesn’t fight him. Donna’s eager gaze is taking in every second of their interactions (or maybe just drinking in every glimpse of Oliver, and Felicity can’t quite blame her for that). She no doubt sees the way Felicity watches Oliver move over to the sink, rinsing out his mug as though he’s in his own home, casually filling the space with his calm masculinity.

When the front door closes behind him, Donna turns on her, as Lizzie munches her cereal quietly.

“Please tell me you’re dating him,” she says, and Felicity glares at her, then gestures down at Lizzie with an exaggerated nod.

“Let’s go in the other room, please.”

“They’re not dating,” Lizzie says, pouting a bit. “ _I_ think they should just kiss.”

Donna bends down to kiss the top of her head. “That’s because you are a very smart girl—even smarter than your mom.”

Lizzie beams, knowing this is a real compliment, as Felicity crosses her arms over her chest and marches into the family room. It looks like she was lucky to move with Lizzie when she did; she can’t live with _two_ of them constantly haranguing her about her love life.

“We are just friends, Mom,” she says with a long breath. “And don’t put that in Lizzie’s head, please.”

“Sounds like it’s already there—and you can see it all over your face, honey.” Donna reaches out to run her hand down the side of Felicity’s arm, but she jerks away from the touch.

“There’s nothing going on there,” she says firmly.

“Felicity, you are smarter than-”

“He doesn’t see me that way,” she says, and suddenly she can’t meet her mother’s eyes.

In turning to look away, her gaze falls on the window… and the man outside, shoveling her driveway, just to help her out. The snowflakes fall in heavier flurries through the air, blurring his figure as it moves in strong, efficient motions across the asphalt he’s stripping bare. There’s something so domestic about it, as though he went out to shovel before coming in to curl up on the couch with her, watching movies and staying warm in each other’s arms. But he won’t be doing that. The embers of the earlier pang flare to life with a pain she didn’t realize was there.

Because she knows, no matter how kind or friendly he is, that he’s turned down every chance to make it something more. That night, at the Firelight Festival, she could have _sworn_ … She refuses to make a move herself, given how she promised to protect Lizzie from any heartbreak—but if he wanted her, she wouldn’t have the strength to stay away.

Maybe it’s for the best that he sees her only as a friend. Less chance for pain when they’re just smiles and coffee and helping each other out.

So why is the twisting of her stomach starting to feel like she’s plummeting towards a fall?

“I think he does,” her mother says quietly.

“ _Mom_ ,” Felicity says, for what feels like the thousandth time in the few minutes she’s been here, because she can’t deal with her mother’s expectations piling more weight on her own.

She looks back at Donna, who’s smiling at her with sympathy, and this time she lets herself be tugged into the embrace. The tip of her nose digs into the soft fuzz of her mother’s sweater, soaked in perfume that smells like her childhood, as Donna’s hands stroke up and down her back. It’s moments like this when Felicity feels her age, the years of childhood she lost in her own child. But here in her mother’s arms, she doesn’t have to be strong alone.

Though she needs a different kind of strength when her mother makes a tsking noise in her ear and pauses with her hands on Felicity’s waist, saying, “Going to the diner a little too often, are we?”

Yep. It’s kind of nice to have a reminder of why this move was a good idea.

Then Lizzie comes in from the kitchen as they’re pulling apart, tugging on Felicity’s sleeve. “Mom, can we take Nonna into town? She can meet Miss Patty and Babette!”

She takes one moment to think about that, her head beginning to throb with an ache behind her eyes.

“No,” she says simply. “It’s snowing too much.”

Felicity has never loved snow more.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver wakes from a nightmare, but the darkness stays with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I am, of course, so sorry that this update took so long—but it is what it is, I can’t excuse it. I appreciate everyone who’s sticking with this story, and more than respect anyone who bows out or wants to wait until it’s finished. :) Trying to figure out what I want for this fic vs. what others want vs. what’s best for it has been a bit paralyzing, but I’m doing my best to try and make this fic worthwhile—and I can promise that I will NOT abandon it until it’s finished (though I will say, as a ‘warning,’ that it will probably not be as long as you might have hoped or expected. I will, however, do my best to make it a complete and satisfying arc.) 
> 
> Thank you to all you beautiful, patient readers… and I hope you enjoy this slightly darker chapter—finally filling in some backstory for this world’s poor, long-suffering Oliver. Some notes on the choices I made are at the end.

It’s the blood that teases along the edge of reality, leaving him hovering in a haze of madness as he wonders if he’s finally woken from the dream that is Stars Hollow. The pain is a loose and stuttering discomfort he can’t quite grasp, detached from whatever wound he’s remembering tonight, a simple omnipresent fact that always feels unreal. But the blood, warm and sticky and crackling along the lines of his knuckles as he braces his hands against the ground, is so real he can taste the metallic tang in the air.

He runs, churning up dirt that splatters across his face as he dives for cover, as his blood-stained hands reach out to grasp the man lying there. Gunfire screams like fireworks through the air, a macabre celebration of destruction and death—but it all falls silent as he tries to hold onto the man gasping his last breaths beneath him. Sometimes it’s just a vague face, an amalgamation of brotherhood and loss that slips away as soon as he wakes.

And sometimes it’s the one face he will never forget.

The first thing Oliver feels is the cold air whistling between his teeth as he gasps, waking on a surge of adrenaline that jerks his body violently against the tangle of sheets around him. As his heart thunders in his chest, he leans back on his elbows, breathing deeply through his nose and taking in the silent darkness of the room around him. He forces his eyes calmly along the wood paneling on the walls, the battered couch and sloppily crowded bookshelves, the framed pictures hanging on nearly every available bit of wall space. The place is a combination of the remnants of his father’s office and the renovations to make it an apartment, after the house was nothing but a financial burden and lingering memories.

Now, the single room is quiet and cold with the winter air slipping through the windows, the radiator humming to keep up. Despite the chill, Oliver can feel beads of sweat slithering between his shoulder blades, slicking the skin beneath his armpits. With a sigh, he looks over at the alarm clock—only a few minutes before it would go off, even though the sky visible through the blinds is still dark.

Turning off the alarm and rolling out of the fading warmth of the bed in one smooth movement, Oliver stands and walks on bare feet across the lightly creaking floorboards. Thea’s room around the corner is closed off from the rest of the apartment, letting her sleep through the sounds of him opening drawers for his clothes and grunting softly as he stretches the muscles of his back. The shower screeches as water surges through the old pipes, the rings of the shower curtain scraping against the bar as he conceals himself inside, but she’s never complained about his early morning routine. She seems to be a heavy sleeper.

Oliver, however, has not been a heavy sleeper since before his tour of duty, before he had trained himself to doze lightly with movement waiting just beneath his skin. That’s the feeling that bleeds into his dreams the most, some nights, long endless dreams of waiting… listening to every rustle and thump in the distance, convincing himself to keep his eyes closed because he _just_ checked and it was clear, everything was _fine_ …

The lingering dream makes his fingers twitch with memories of past action, frozen in the current peace, and he runs his hands through his hair to give them something else to do. He knows when he opens his eyes and looks down at them his palms will be clean, his knuckles pale and unmarked, the hairs on the back of his hand not clotted with blood and dirt. But with his eyes closed beneath the stream of lukewarm water, he _feels_ like that’s all he will see.  

He leans his shoulder against the cold tile wall, trying to distract himself so maybe he can pull together some semblance of control this morning… Anything else will do, anything that isn’t blood and pain and loss…

Without the will to stop himself, he thinks of blonde hair in a ponytail that tickles along the base of her neck in a path his fingertips would like to follow, of colorful dresses that flutter around knees with a hem that he would like to slowly draw up her thighs, of blue eyes that clench shut as she huffs out a breath of frustration over her latest silly mumbling, a breath he’d like to inhale as he leans in to kiss the scowl from her bright pink lips.

 _This isn’t helping_ , he tells himself sternly, even though it is. Because now he can do nothing _but_ think of her, and it cleanses the blood and phantoms that linger on his skin more thoroughly than any shower could.

Except it brings with it new shadows, new guilt, as he clenches his hand into a fist and slams it against the tile rather than occupy it with… anything else. This is a more dangerous temptation than wallowing in his nightmares could ever be, because he’s not just risking himself with the darkness waiting within.

When the water heater gives out and the shower turns ice cold, he’s grateful, even as he hisses and lunges for the handle. He waits, just a few moments, as long as he can stand the burn of the freezing water, before turning it off and standing with the damp dripping off his chilled skin.

He’s fighting a losing battle against himself… He’s not even sure what victory looks like.

But he’s never been so tempted by the thought of defeat.

XXXXX

Oliver’s mind is settled by the routine of the diner, the clink and clatter of coffee cups and plates on the counter, the sounds of sausage patties sizzling on the griddle. He can focus on taking the orders, welcoming the new customers signaled by the bell above the door, making sure the coffee is fresh and the tables are clean. It’s simple and painless and no one gets hurt.

John Diggle sits at the counter with his newspaper, sipping coffee and glancing at Oliver with a knowing smirk. “Rough night?” he asks. Oliver can see in his eyes, though, that the question isn’t mocking or assuming. It’s full of understanding.

The lines on his face left by the nightmare must be etched deeper than he thought.

Oliver shrugs, determined not to dwell on it, and Digg just shakes his head in silent sympathy. Then voices rise from the table in the corner, and they both turn to look.

“I’ve told you a dozen times— _brass_ buttons only,” Taylor is saying, pointing his finger forcefully at one of the other older men at the table. “If you can’t find the proper replacements for your uniform, then you might as well stay home.”

“You don’t even know if that’s historically accurate, Taylor,” Andrew says with a scowl.

“It’s accurate to how this town has honored the Battle of Stars Hollow for as long as I can remember.” He sits back in his chair, running a hand over his short gray beard, and adds in a self-righteous tone, “It would be disrespectful to do anything less for our war heroes.”

Oliver resists the urge to roll his eyes, even as he feels his jaw clench tightly and his fists tighten against the edge of the counter. The Revolutionary War reenactment happens every year; as a kid, it was a source of amusement—now…

“I’ve seen Taylor get that reaction out of a fair amount of people,” Digg says, eyeing the strain in Oliver’s arms. “Usually the people he’s talking to at the time.”

“The Battle of Stars Hollow… That wasn’t war,” he says, quietly.

It was a bunch of men standing in the snow all night waiting for the British soldiers who would pass them by. They never fired off a single shot. And now, the re-enactors would play at being soldiers as if they knew what it was like… As if they had any idea…

“Me personally, I’m glad there are places in the world that don’t know what war is.” Digg holds his coffee cup in one hand, the edge of the newspaper in the other, his muscular frame large beneath the fabric of his dark coat. He meets Oliver’s gaze with a calm expression. “Feels like we were over there actually defending something real, you know?”

“Yeah,” Oliver admits with a slow exhale of breath. He and Digg don’t talk about it much, but there’s an awareness between them as veterans, and they both know it. “It’s just… The re-enactment turns it into a show, something to celebrate. And it’s not.”

With a long, knowing look, Digg finally nods and takes a sip of coffee. “It’s not pretty, I’ll give you that. And I don’t know exactly what you went through over there, Oliver.” He sets his cup down onto the counter. “But I have to say I don’t see much wrong with showing some pride when it’s warranted.”

Oliver can’t help the way his eyebrows twitch into a frown, the pinching of his lips as he nods noncommittally, because the nightmare is just too fresh for him to think of anything close to pride. Instead, all he feels is guilt and pain coursing through him like a second heartbeat, a chant of shame ringing in his ears. But he’s not going to put that on Digg.

He doesn’t have to; the man is far too perceptive to not see the tension that tightens Oliver’s shoulders as he leans against the counter, before Oliver can think to move away from him. And now Digg drops the newspaper next to his coffee.

“Hey, man, if you need someone to-”

“I don’t,” Oliver says plainly, but he keeps his tone soft.

Digg just raises one eyebrow. “You need to let someone in, or all of this will eat you alive, believe me. I know it’s tough—but I’m in a much better place than I would be, and that’s because of Lyla.”

“That’s different,” Oliver says, trying his best not to sound petulant. Most of him would like to avoid this conversation altogether, but John happens to be one of his best customers. “Lyla was over there, she was a part of all of it. She already knows what it’s like. I’m not going to drag anyone else into this.”

Into his grief, his memories, his guilt… Into the pit of darkness he’s shrouded himself in. Where he deserves to be.

Growing up in Stars Hollow had left him bored and restless, spoiled by the tranquility into thinking he knew enough of the world to reject its limitations—which, in the end, were just about kindness and decency. At the time, though, he thought partying and sleeping around was what he’d earned for being stuck in the middle of nowhere, and he didn’t care who he hurt just to feel something…

Until flirting with drugs and sleeping with his high school sweetheart’s sister left her whole family spiraling, the girls leaving town in separate directions for distant lives, the rest of the town torn between gossip and shame—his own parents barely able to show their faces. That had been when joining the military seemed like a good idea, partly to get away, partly because that was one of the few options his father had given him.

He just didn’t expect Tommy to follow.

Tommy Merlyn, his partner in crime, somehow partying right along with him without ever crossing those same lines—and yet when Oliver shipped off, his brother in all but blood wanted to be nowhere else but by his side. Even as Oliver found discipline and focus and skills he never knew he could have, while Tommy’s goodhearted nature suffered under the tragedy and death surrounding them. Even as missions grew more and more dangerous, while Oliver kept wondering if he should hold Tommy back when the man stayed stubbornly beside him.

And at his side is where Tommy died, while Oliver held him, while his blood slid between Oliver’s fingers, staining his hands forever.

Oliver tries to focus again on the diner around him, on that simple tranquility he’d rejected, on trying just to get through another day without remembering all that he’s lost. Without thinking of the parents who died in that car accident so soon after he’d come back a better man… Without thinking of the brother who he still sees in his dreams, face growing cold and still as the smile fades, eyes going blank as they stare up at him…

He’s managed to build a life where everything on the surface seems simple and whole, where Thea can grow up as normally as possible, even with just his broken, damaged self to rely on. He’s not going to risk shattering the bit of solid ground he’s clinging to, when the weight of one more person could pull them all down into the shadows.

But Digg just shakes his head.

“When it’s the right person, it’s not dragging them in—it’s them helping to show you the way out,” Digg says, in his sagest voice. “You gotta open up to let the light in.”

Any response Oliver might have made is drowned out by the bell ringing above the door, and the commotion of the newcomers to the diner—a trio of female voices chattering excitedly as puffy coats and blonde hair swirl into the room. Well, one of the voices giggles and encourages as the youngest recounts a story about school, the third flat with exhausted patience as she steers them towards a table in the corner. Oliver finds himself smiling unexpectedly, earlier mood fading fast, as Felicity rolls her eyes when Donna sheds her coat with a flourish (he thinks the rolled eyes have more to do with having to scramble for the tossed-aside coat, as the flourish nearly whips it into her face, than the tight outfit beneath that seems to be Donna’s normal wardrobe).

Donna stumbles as she makes her way between the crowded tables, half-falling on Taylor with a gasped apology and a brushing of her hands down his sweater vest. Taylor splutters and turns red, beard quivering as his mouth moves soundlessly—Oliver can’t help thinking they should all be grateful to Donna for that particular trick.

The woman has only been in town for a week, but she’s already being called over to Babette and Miss Patty’s table in the corner with the enthusiasm of old friends. Miss Patty is busy launching into a story she’d remembered since they last spoke, about a cocktail bar in Vegas where she was felt up by Wayne Newton when she was a showgirl, while Babette interrogates Donna about whether or not her sweater is cashmere as she runs her fingers down the sleeve.

“Honey, you’ve got the cutest little tush—I can see where Felicity gets that gorgeous figure,” Babette says to Donna in her smoky voice, her blonde curls piled atop her head to give her petite frame a little extra height. “You know you only need to look at her mother to see how a woman’s going to age, and I’d say she’s got one hell of a future.” With her blue eyes wide and eyebrows raised, Babette looks across the diner right at Oliver and shouts, “You paying attention to this, sugar?”

Digg nearly chokes on his coffee, gulping it down mid-swig as Oliver keeps his face blank, knowing better than to respond in any visible way. The conversation amongst the women has been diverted by Miss Patty discussing an incident with a corset on a Broadway stage, presumably following from the admiration of Donna’s figure, and no one in the diner is looking at him anyway with the hubbub they’re raising. In the chaos, Felicity has settled Lizzie into her chair at the table, and is making her way to the counter with a tired look in her eyes.

Oliver’s heartbeat picks up slightly as she approaches, his palms a bit moist as he clenches the rag in his fist, trying to be nonchalant. Why does he have to _try_ to be nonchalant? This must still be the dream getting to him, rattling his composure, as Felicity slides onto the stool next to Digg with a heavy sigh. A few wisps of hair have escaped her ponytail, hanging down around her ears.

“I need coffee, _all_ the coffee,” she says, groaning. “And if you serve booze here, I’m seriously considering it, I don’t care what time it is.”

As Oliver prepares her coffee the way she likes, she starts asking Digg about updates on the baby and his job at the security firm. By the time he returns, she’s just starting her familiar lecture about the importance of including cyber-security in his services.

“We mostly do home alarm systems and personal security,” Digg says, though he’s smiling with her as he argues. “Not a lot of major technological centers to defend around here.”

“But that’s the beauty of the internet—you could offer cyber security at a distance.” Any other point she might have made is distracted by the coffee being set down in front of her, as her hands close around the mug and he notices the glimmering silver of her nail polish. She closes her eyes with that pleased, grateful sound deep in her throat, and that jittery, quivering awareness of her is back beneath his skin as he has to fight to stand still.

This is just going to be one of those days, he guesses… He’s been having more and more of them lately.

“I’m more concerned with offering security for the people here,” Digg says, and he turns towards her with purpose. “When are you going to let me install an alarm system for you, Felicity?”

“I really don’t need one—you two are always acting like this place is full of monsters when it’s really just full of… that,” she says, gesturing towards Miss Patty arguing with Taylor about proper volume for a diner, as Donna holds in a laugh with a hand over her mouth. “Although if you could create one that will keep out my mother, I may be onboard.”

“We just want you to be safe,” Oliver says, voice low, rehashing the argument they’ve been having for months. The residual adrenaline of the nightmare makes the thought of anything happening to her a live wire in his spine. Even in this idyllic small town, his mind can conjure up a dozen dark scenarios that make his entire body tense.

Felicity turns her glare on him, eyes narrowing behind the frames of her glasses, lips twisted up into a small pout. He’s fairly sure it’s meant in jest, but there’s nothing funny about the way his body reacts—twisting the worry and unfounded fear into a different pulse low in his belly. Involuntarily, he leans forward, the corners of his lips quirking upwards, the breath he suddenly takes in deeper than he expected.

He hasn’t felt this heart-pounding, tingling, _playful_ sense of awareness in years… He wasn’t sure that he still could, after everything he’s lost. That was just one more part of himself shed and left behind in the wreckage of his former life.

But here he is, staring into those sharply intelligent blue eyes with a sense of challenge, hoping that she opens those perfect pink lips and says something back. Just so he can feel the _life_ flooding back into his veins.

Her attention is pulled away by the approach of her mother’s high heels clicking against the floor, and rather than linger on the sight of her ponytail whipping around, strands tangling in her dangling earrings, tempting him to reach out and unwind them… Oliver swallows thickly and forces himself to look at the other customers that he’s been neglecting.

Digg watches him with an unrepentant smirk and eyes that see far too much.

Anything Digg might have said, however, is swallowed up by the arrival of Donna Smoak slipping between his and Felicity’s stools to lean against the counter.

“Oh, hello there,” she says brightly as she brushes against Digg’s shoulder, which is broad enough to take up additional space beyond his seat. With a giggle and a squeeze of his solid bicep through the sleeve of his jacket, she holds out one hand with rings that glimmer in the overhanging lights and says, “I’m Donna Smoak, Felicity’s mom. And you are?”

“John Diggle.” He shakes her hand, engulfing the long-nailed fingers in his palm. “Felicity’s friend.”

“My daughter has so many good-looking friends here,” Donna says, as Felicity tenses in prepared mortification. “I hope you two are looking out for my girls.”

“Trying to,” Digg says, as Felicity simultaneously says, “Mom…”

“You know, they’re the most important thing in the world to me—the best thing I’ve ever done is raise this amazing girl here,” Donna says, turning to stroke her hand down Felicity’s ponytail, though her gaze zeroes in on Oliver.

It’s the second time today he’s locked eyes with a Smoak woman, but this time he’s left feeling nervous for a completely different reason.

Donna’s pretty features sharpen as she stares him down. “I mean, not only is she beautiful, but she’s also incredibly smart and strong and brave, with everything she’s been through.” There’s a challenge in her voice, as if Oliver would do anything but agree wholeheartedly with her claims—in fact, he thinks she’s missing how compassionate and kind and funny Felicity is, how she lights up a room with her smile, how she loves Lizzie so fiercely and yet so gently…

“ _Mom_ ,” Felicity says wearily, cheeks turning pink.

“What?” Donna asks with false innocence. “I’m just making sure everyone here knows how lucky they are to have you here. How they should _appreciate_ you and-”

“It is way too early for this,” Felicity mutters, squirming out of her mother’s grasp and taking her coffee cup with her as she heads back towards their table.

For a moment, Donna looks like she might say more to him, but then she turns to follow Felicity through the minefield of curious townspeople. Oliver watches the two women argue in hushed tones as they slide into their seats, until Lizzie’s smaller voice pipes up with a question about ordering breakfast, and they’re distracted with new arguments about bacon.

“She’s right, you know,” Digg says, as Oliver tears his gaze away from their table to frown at him in confusion. “About Felicity—we are lucky to have her here. And I think you know that.”

Oliver thinks of denying it, as if shutting down that smug perceptiveness in Digg’s eyes could close this tense, pulsing feeling safely back inside the hidden corners of himself. But when he looks over, sees the sunlight through the window bathing Felicity in warmth as she talks animatedly with her daughter, he knows there’s no closing this open wound in his painfully built defenses. All of his resistance is bleeding out of him, destroyed by every smile, reopened with every glance…

He thinks of fighting it harder, he _should_ —but this wound feels like life, not death. He’d almost forgotten what that felt like.

So he says, softly, “I do.” Sometimes it feels like the only thing he knows, how lucky he is that she walked into his diner, that she somehow found her way here to Stars Hollow. It’s the best thing that has happened to him in a very long time...

Possibly ever.

But it all feels far less real than the echoes of screams ringing through the world around him, than the face of his friend staring up at him as he dies, than the dreams of blood still coating his hands.

So he nods in farewell at Digg and disappears into the back to check on Roy, sending Thea out to wait tables as soon as she’s downstairs, while he tells himself working on inventory isn’t hiding. It’s what’s best for everyone.

And so is keeping his hands to himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I know a lot of you wanted Tommy to be alive in this world—to be fair, me too! But I wanted something dark enough to explain Oliver’s hesitance, as well as to bring his character a little more in line with his canon self. Finding that balance in the quirky world of Stars Hollow is tricky, and who knows how successful this was—but that’s the challenge of AU’s, right? :) I know Oliver’s being stubborn but we’ll get working on that soon! 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felicity has a dream of her own, and some words of wisdom from her mother start catching up with her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was partially inspired by a throwaway line said by Luke in the show, thanks to a gifset I saw on Tumblr. :) I know these two are moving slow as molasses (I honestly don't know how the show kept Luke and Lorelai apart for four seasons--lots of third parties, I guess; decided not to take that particular detour... yet? ;P) but we're getting there. 
> 
> And a favorite Arrow character finally makes their appearance. ;)

The smell of coffee wakes her, bitter and strong, wafting up from downstairs as she stirs restlessly in her bed. With a groan, Felicity stretches the muscles of her back and rubs the sleep from her eyes, emerging into the cool air outside her blankets with a willpower only the desire for coffee can inspire.

Her sweatpants hang long and floppy over her feet as she shuffles downstairs, her thin baggy t-shirt frayed at the hem, her blonde hair matted in snarled bed head along one side. She’s halfway through a gaping yawn when her steps creak over the kitchen floorboards.

“Good morning,” says a soft, deep voice, and she finishes her yawn with a smile as she takes in Oliver standing by the coffee pot.

“Hi there,” she replies, still groggy as she reaches out to wrap her arms around his waist. He tugs her effortlessly into his grasp, leaning down to kiss her gently. She tilts her head back, pushing up on sock-clad tiptoes to deepen the brief morning kiss, the scratch of his stubble against her chin a familiar rasp of intimacy.

When she settles back onto her feet with a happy little hum, he keeps one arm around the small of her back, turning towards the stove where the pancakes are waiting to be flipped. She reaches towards the mug of coffee sitting on the counter.

“You really shouldn’t be drinking that,” he says, though his scolding is softened by the warm smile on his face.

“What? Why?”

He finishes flipping the last pancake on the sizzling griddle, then lets her go to kneel down in front of her. “These two aren’t coffee fans… yet,” he murmurs, and then his hands slide along the curve of her belly, his lips pressing just beneath her belly button.

She hadn’t even realized her ratty t-shirt (no… _his_ ratty t-shirt) was stretched across a belly swollen with life, the weight and fullness of her body suddenly overwhelming her, as she stares down at the curve of her stomach—and Oliver’s reverent expression as he lifts his face and looks up at her with eyes full of… love.

Felicity wakes to a room that smells nothing of coffee, to a house that is silent… To a belly that is flat, as she runs a hand across the fabric of the tank top she wore to bed. It’s strange, how the lingering memory of the dream can make that simple fact seem melancholy—it’s not like she _wants_ to be pregnant again.

Right?

She tries not to think about the other and more obvious part of the dream, but as she throws a hand across her face and sighs, she can’t help thinking of her last conversation with her mother before she left.

_“He isn’t Cooper, honey,” Donna said, as she folded another of her colorful patterned sweaters into her suitcase. “And he’s not your father, either.”_

_“I know that, Mom.” Felicity didn’t meet her direct gaze. “That doesn’t change the fact that I can’t risk it. I can’t risk letting Lizzie get hurt.”_

_“You mean you can’t risk_ you _getting hurt.” Donna’s hand touched Felicity’s shoulder, startling her into dropping the pair of Donna’s heels she was holding. As her mother’s long nails combed through her hair and scraped gently against her scalp, Felicity felt like a kid again… something she hadn’t felt in a very long time._

_“We’re happy here,” she said firmly._

_“I know, baby,” Donna said. “But you can’t let fear keep you from trying to have more. I didn’t raise you to let anything hold you back—especially yourself.”_

_“And we know where that got me.” She sat down heavily on the edge of the bed, and her mother followed, with a small sigh._

_“Your father… You know that had nothing to do with you—that was all him,” Donna said, a bit of sharpness in her tone, as she grabbed Felicity’s hand and held it in her lap. Her voice shook a little on the last word, as though it was something she was telling herself as insistently as she was telling Felicity. “And Cooper—he was just a foolish, ignorant boy who never realized what he had. The only part of him worth keeping is downstairs reading in her room.”_

_Felicity smiled then, an involuntary reaction at the mention of her daughter; no matter what bitterness she held over Cooper leaving them both so he could go live the life he wanted, none of that diminished her love for her child. In fact, it was a sort of freedom she appreciated more in hindsight—she and Cooper had been two angry, bored, intelligent teenagers who found out their brains couldn’t get them out of_ every _problem, and as it turned out, their love collapsed under its first trial like a badly written code. Still, the sum of the equation had been worth the miscalculation, greater than its parts._

_That didn’t mean she couldn’t still remember crying in the bathroom, her sobs drowned out by the wails of the newborn baby in her bedroom, as she waited for the blonde hair dye to transform her into someone else—someone who wasn’t facing her second abandoned, broken heart in only sixteen years. The blonde girl with glasses who stared back at her that day was no longer a teenager; she was a mother._

_“You have made such an amazing life for the two of you, here,” Donna said, smiling a little sadly. “I can see that now, and I’m so proud of you. I wish I could’ve done better for you when-”_

_“Mom,” Felicity said, squeezing her hand. There were moments when her mother made her roll her eyes and groan and wonder how they were possibly related; but this was not one of those moments. “If I’m a good mother, it’s only because I learned from the best.”_

_Donna smiled, reaching one hand up to wipe the gathering tears from the corners of her eyes. “Still, I didn’t set the best example with the men in my life. I’m sorry if you ever got hurt because of me, sweetheart.”_

_“No,” Felicity said, shaking her head. She remembered a few boyfriends now and then; none really stuck around long enough to leave an impact (and Donna was always fiercely protective of her, so she only met the good ones—though, none were good enough to stay). When she searched her heart now, she felt no resentment or pain or anything but disappointment for her mother’s heartbreaks. “You were just trying to live your life, to find someone to share it with. I always understood that.”_

_Donna nodded, eyes alight in triumph. “Then don’t you think Lizzie will understand, too?”_

Felicity lifts her hand from her face, blinking in the light of late morning streaming through the blinds. Her mother had left a month ago, and her advice was still a pressing echo in the back of her mind.

Clearly invading her dreams.

_“Honey… You’re in love with Oliver. And if you_ tell _him that, you might just get to have it all.”_

Groaning, Felicity sits up in her bed, kicking down the sheets until they’re only wrapped around her feet. She looks down at the colorful pajama pants and purple tank top, and finds herself wishing they were a long pair of men’s sweatpants and an old ratty t-shirt… and that she’d go downstairs to find Oliver Queen in her kitchen.

“Pathetic,” she mutters, as she yanks a sweatshirt on over her top. The spring warmth is starting to creep into the air, but there’s still a chill left in the old house.

She runs her fingers through the mess of her hair as she wanders down the stairs, ruthlessly burying the ridiculous pang of disappointment when the kitchen proves as empty as she knew it would be. Rolling her eyes, she turns on the coffeemaker for herself.

Then she notices that the cereal bowl she expects to find in the sink isn’t there, and the space beneath Lizzie’s door is still dark. Her daughter’s not one for sleeping in, and it makes Felicity’s heartbeat quicken a little as she knocks on Lizzie’s door. After nothing but silence, she opens the door and sees the lump in the bedding, the silky light brown hair splayed across the pillow, the small face peeking out above the top of the comforter.

A face that’s flushed and slightly sweaty, pale and pinched with pain as Felicity hurries over to crouch beside her.

“Lizzie…” she says softly, smoothing back the damp strands of hair from her forehead.

“I don’t feel good, Mom,” Lizzie whimpers. Felicity can feel the fever radiating from her skin, and she breathes through the little stab of panic, reminding herself that every child gets sick, and they’re _fine_. She still wants to tear this illness away with her bare hands _immediately_.

“And I’m itchy,” Lizzie adds, shifting a little in the covers. Felicity peels them back to grab Lizzie’s small hands before they scratch the red bumps appearing on her arms.

“Okay, sweets,” Felicity whispers. “I’ll get you better, I promise.”

“Okay,” Lizzie says wearily, and where her hand is curled in Felicity’s, she intertwines their pinkies together, the way they’ve always sealed their promises. Felicity leans in to press a kiss against Lizzie’s sweaty forehead, grateful she had her chicken pox a long time ago.

She stands up and rearranges the blankets around Lizzie. “Do you want something to eat or drink, baby? I’ll get you anything you want.”

After a little sigh and a moment of thinking, Lizzie looks up at her and says, “Mashed potatoes.” It isn’t a surprise; it’s her favorite comfort food.

“Yeah, I can make some,” Felicity says, thinking of the box mix in the pantry.

But when she reaches the doorway, she hears Lizzie’s small, faint voice. “Can I have the kind Oliver makes?”

XXXXX

In the month since her mother left, every time she opens the door to the diner and her eyes sweep across the room, Felicity feels her heartbeat pick up slightly—and then leap into her throat as soon as she sees him. She walks past the plate glass window and has to keep herself from blatantly turning to stare into the diner, straight to the space behind the counter where he might be standing. It makes her feel silly and desperate in a way she hasn’t in years… if ever.

Somehow, always, her thoughts turn to him. And she tells herself firmly it’s just a crush, as she steps through the door.

It doesn’t stop her from scanning the room—or feeling a little jolt when she doesn’t see him there.

She left Lizzie situated on the couch, with books and TV and blankets and the phone in reach, as she walked to town with her cell phone clutched in her hand. All she can think about is getting her daughter some mashed potatoes…

Or, at least, that’s all she _should_ be thinking about. Because when she looks around the room and doesn’t see Oliver anywhere, the disappointment she feels has nothing to do with mashed potatoes.

But Thea sees her standing there awkwardly, and smiles in welcome, starting to pour her a mug of coffee.

“Oh, um, no, I don’t need any,” Felicity says hurriedly. Thea stares back at her in shock. “I need—is Oliver here? I need him. I mean, I need to _speak_ to him, to see if he can give me something special. To _eat—_ his _food_.” She closes her eyes, sucking in a deep breath to try and stop the spilling of words she can’t seem to control. The room around her is silent.

“He’s in the back,” Thea says, grinning. “You can go _speak_ to him there. With some privacy.”

“Thank you.” Felicity’s too frazzled and impatient to correct her or even glare, cutting through the room as the townspeople watch with their coffee cups held in mid-air. When she reaches the hallway to the back offices, she hears a resurgence of murmured chatter, the distinct syllables of her name hissed in giggling whispers—and Babette’s smoky voice, loudly suggesting that, “Those two need to just get on with it and make some babies already.”

The image of her dream pops into her head, of him kneeling in front of her belly and kissing their _twins_ … and for a moment, she stands alone in the dimly lit hallway and wonders what she’s really doing here. She could have just called, she could have asked Thea for mashed potatoes (even though it was 10 a.m.), she could have told Lizzie she’d just have to eat the mashed potatoes they had…

Instead, she took the first excuse she had to come here and find him.

The sound of metal clanging loudly in the back room distracts her from thinking too hard about why that is, about how much she _needs_ to see him, about how she misses him even when she sees him every day… She follows it into the inventory room, where she can just see a hint of movement through the tall shelving units crammed with food.

Then she rounds the corner, and she sees _him._

His back is to her, bare and broad, muscles surging beneath his skin as his grip on the bar pulls his entire body upwards in a jerking motion, lifting the bar up to the next rung of some kind of ladder. Sweat slips down the crevices of his spine, between his shoulder blades, past the few scattered scars that mar his flesh. His biceps flex as the veins stand out along his forearms, his knuckles whitened as his hands tighten around the metal bar.

He leaps up another rung, lifting the sight of his taut ass within his light green cargo pants further into view. Felicity finds her gaze tracing every inch of him, lingering on the burn marks along his lower back, then falling just below to stare at the curves of his body that she can only imagine would be firm beneath her touch…

When the muscles there clench tightly as he prepares another leap, Felicity can’t help the strangled sound that she makes—which breaks the silence just before the metal scrapes against the ladder.

Oliver falls abruptly, landing heavily on his dark boots, twisting around to see her standing there. She gets an eyeful of abs carved into his solid torso, a few more scars bisecting the unbelievable lines of his muscles, tensed in rigid rows like brushstrokes painted by God…

Then he’s lunging for the t-shirt draped nearby, using it to wipe the sweat from his face and holding it uncertainly in front of him as he sees her slack-jawed gape.

And she realizes that she’s just… staring. So she squeezes her eyes shut and says, “Oh, God, I—I didn’t see anything. Okay obviously I saw things but they were good things—not _bad_ things, I mean. Not… private things. Just good… very good… things.”

“Felicity,” Oliver says, in the tone she knows so well, so she knows when she opens her eyes he’ll be smiling. And he is, before the t-shirt he’s pulling over his head obscures his face—and highlights the shifting of his muscles before the fabric covers him up. That should finally make her stare less… but it makes her think of the t-shirt in her dream, and she has to bite her bottom lip to keep from blurting that out.

“Sorry,” she says finally, when she has reasonable control over herself. “Thea said I could come back here.”

“It’s fine,” he says, with a shake of his head, matter-of-factly and instantly focused on her. “Do you need something?”

“Mashed potatoes.”

He blinks.

“Lizzie’s sick,” Felicity adds, and now he frowns. “She has the chicken pox, and all she wants to eat is mashed potatoes… _your_ mashed potatoes.”

“Is she okay?” he asks, sounding legitimately concerned. And she knows that he _is_ , that he does truly care for her daughter, not for any reason other than being their friend _._ Something twists inside her, sliding into place—or maybe it’s simply sliding into view.

“Yeah, just a bit miserable, but I’ve already got her doctor’s appointment scheduled for this afternoon. It’s not urgent but if you could maybe…” Felicity says, wondering how to phrase this slightly demanding request, as Oliver starts to move between the shelves. She wonders what he’s doing… until she sees him grabbing potatoes and a few other ingredients as he goes.

_Just a crush, just a crush_ , she reminds her heart urgently as it warms in her chest.

“I should be getting back to her,” Felicity says, pulling her gaze away from the way he cradles the ingredients in his arms. “You don’t have to rush, I could come back-”

“No, I don’t mind,” he says softly.

She stands in the doorway, meeting his eyes now, unable to look away. Sometimes, his sharp blue eyes can be so piercing… but now, they’re gentle, softened by the upturned corners of his lips. It reminds her of the look he gave her in the dream, but it’s _real._

And it’s on the tip of her tongue then, though she’s not sure exactly what—for once, perhaps for the first time in her life, the words don’t come tumbling out. Or maybe it’s not words that wait to burst forth, buzzing just beneath her skin; maybe it’s movement, hands reaching out to grab hold of him, lips forming not the shape of words but the shape of a kiss, gently pressed against his mouth as she pushed up on tiptoes to pull him close. She can see it, in her mind, at once as clear and hazy as a dream…

Then the moment breaks, as the cell phone still clutched in her hand buzzes, and she tears her gaze away from his as though jolted with a shock. It’s just an e-mail alert for a wine sale at the nearest liquor store (and _yeah_ , she’ll be taking advantage of that, if her current mental state is any indication), but by the time she looks up, Oliver has turned around to grab something from another shelf.

“I’ve gotta go,” she says, thinking of Lizzie alone at home—which is the only thing she _should_ be thinking about.

It’s safer that way.

She keeps telling herself that, as she heads back home and spreads cream over Lizzie’s spots, as she uses her sick days to stay home with her—as Oliver brings mashed potatoes for her every day that week, even staying to watch a movie with them when Lizzie asks in her tiny, tired voice.

Watching him sitting across her living room, handing her daughter the Gatorade from the coffee table so she doesn’t have to reach out from under her blanket, Felicity wants everything to stay exactly like this. She’s happy, and trying for anything more than that is risking it all falling apart.

But her mother’s voice, in the back of her mind, is starting to sound more and more like her own. She won’t say it out loud, but she can no longer deny it.

She is in love with Oliver Queen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Admitting it to yourself is the first step. :) 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!


End file.
